That's Not A Costume, Is It?
by AppleMelody
Summary: Jessica Carter's quiet life is turned upside down by the arrival of four visitors who seem a little TOO in character, and she soon finds herself dragged into a mission to return these visitors home, as well as having to protect them from the less-than-lovely aspects of her own universe. How hard could it be? RATED T FOR LANGUAGE
1. Chapter 1

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**First, thanks for picking this story, hope you like. I'm putting this at the beginning, because I really hate putting Author's Notes in the chapters in the middle of the story, because I like it to flow as much as possible. I'd just like to point out a few things, to make sure everything's clear. **

**Thing-to-note-number-one, there is no, and nor will there ever _be_ any romance between a human and the Turtles. Second, this story features the 2012 Nickelodeon version. Third, I have a plot set out, but I'm always open to minor tweaks, so if you like something, be sure to suggest it in a review - just no romance ideas, M or otherwise.**

**Lastly, reviews, favourites and follows are love :D Hope you enjoy.**

**–_AppleMelody_**

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><p><strong>Chapter 1: Unexpected Visitors<strong>

* * *

><p>London is a wonderful city.<p>

Very loud, and true, it has its dark times – most prominently the East End in the late 19th century – but for the most part, it truly is wonderful.

And very diverse, too. It's not uncommon to walk down a street, and hear someone talking in Mandarin, or French, or even English, but with an American or Scottish accent. Of course, there are different _types_ of American and Scottish accent. But the point stands.

But there are also many native Londoners that are what you would expect to find – not the Americanized stereotype of tea-drinking, top-hat-wearing posh-frocks – but relatively "normal" Londoners: pale skin, thoughtful expression, and a complete lack of patience.

The people are not quite as wonderful as the city they live in, but there are those few rare gems of a person, who is always smiling, and always willing to help someone who is lost in the crowds of London Town, no matter how strange.

Jessica Carter was one such person.

Jessica Carter – but most people called her Jessie – was a fairly normal person. She loved going to the cinema and hanging out with her friends, but she was also sensible and studious when she needed to be. She had finished university, and was working at St Mary's Hospital to complete her medical training, in the hope of one day becoming a fully qualified doctor.

She had one vice.

Everyone is entitled to a vice. Some people have more serious ones, such as heavy drinking. Others have almost laughable ones, like a necessity to keep everything in its place – similar to a mild form of OCD. Jessica's fell more into the latter category than the former.

She loved children's shows.

She could spend hours with her computer in her lap, marathon-ing shows from her childhood. Every television show she had loved from age six to twelve. In her opinion, those were the golden years. Some had been fairly typical preferences for a girl, Winx (but only the original three seasons), W.I.T.C.H, and some had been _less _orthodox, such as Xiaolin Showdown.

She could still remember it like it was yesterday.

It had been a cold, damp, gloomy day in February of 2003. She remembered trudging downstairs, a seven-year-old girl, pouring herself a glass of orange juice and turning on the television. She had flicked through the kids channels, looking for something interesting to watch. Nothing had taken her fancy.

Then she saw it. On the television guide, a title she hadn't seen before. Curious, she had pressed 'Select' on the remote, and watched with mild interest at the pilot episode playing before her young eyes. Then the mild interest increased, becoming fascination, and, twenty-two minutes later, it was adoration.

She was hooked.

Michelangelo was her favourite. Right from the start. She loved his silly jokes and humour. Raphael came second. His humour was darker, more cynical, and she adored his interaction with Michelangelo, and his meekness when dealing with her third favourite, April O'Neil. She loved Donatello and Leonardo and Casey and Splinter. She loved them all. Even Ch'rell.

She never bought any memorabilia beyond the DVDs, and was not explicit in stating her love for the show. She enjoyed talking about it with her friends, but mostly kept it to herself. And when the final episode, then the film, aired, she was left with a sad contentedness. The show she loved more than anything was finished, but it had gone out excellently.

And so, as a thirteen-year-old girl, one would have thought that was the end of that. She watched re-runs when they came on, and even gave the 2012 version of the show a shot (she didn't take to the storyline particularly, but the jokes were cute) however, in truth, she was done. Watching the show as and when it happened was a significant part of her childhood – just like all those shows were – but Jessica's childhood, magical as it had been, was over.

Until, that fateful day, when she needed a little space.

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><p>"Please, please, <em>please<em>?" begged the little girl who was practically bouncing up and down on the sofa. The little girl was called Amanda Carter. Amanda was Nathan Carter's daughter, and Nathan was Jessica's older brother. There was a five-year age gap.

"No." Jessica replied flatly, "You are _not_ having ice-cream for breakfast and that is _that_."

"But _why_?"

"Because you aren't sick." Jessica told her three-nearly-four year old niece firmly, "Ice-cream for breakfast is when you're sick."

"I'm _home_sick." Amanda wailed,

Jessica chuckled, "Nice try, Ammy." She said, ruffling the little girl's black hair; she had inherited her mother's hair, for both Jessica and Nathan had brown. Amanda _had_ however, inherited her father's golden-hazel eyes – which in turn had been Nathan and Jessica's father's – whereas Jessica had gotten her mother's dark green ones. "But no dice."

"I don't want _dice_, I want _ice-cream_."

Jessica sighed, the cries of her little niece were now more annoying than endearing, "No." she said, "Ask me one time and you won't get any ice-cream _at all_. Not even after dinner."

Funnily enough, Amanda was silent after that.

Jessica loved babysitting Amanda when Nathan was off on business. He rarely travelled more than a few hours' drive, and so dropped Amanda off to spend a night or two at Auntie Jessie's. Jessica lived fairly close to her widowed brother, and was more than happy to take a slight detour to-and-from work.

But there were times when Jessica, who lived alone when Amanda wasn't there, needed a little space. Kids were hard work, and Jessica would never understand how Nathan had managed to raise Amanda so well without help.

Well, _she_ had helped, but not nearly as much as a significant other would have.

And so, whilst Amanda entertained herself with the drivel (in Jessica's opinion) that nowadays passed for children's entertainment, Jessica made her way quietly out of the flat, locking the door behind her, leaving a note saying she would be back _momentarily_. And Jessica made her way up the steps that ran around the side of the building, and made her way to the roof of her apartment building.

She didn't smoke, she just liked the fresh air, the faint rushing of traffic and crowds from below, _just_ loud enough to remind her where she was, but not so much that it dominated her thoughts. At sunset, on a warm autumn evening, the roof was her favourite place to be.

* * *

><p>The roof, as it turned out, was already occupied.<p>

As mentioned before, Jessica had always loved kiddie shows, but she had never been one to dress up in costumes and pretend to be the characters – she wasn't one for cos-playing. She preferred to just watch. However, the four people already on the roof clearly thought differently; for they were dressed up as the turtles from the 2012 version. She would have put them at about sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. Rather ironic, all things considered.

They were walking around the roof, talking to each other in hushed voices, and looking over the edge confusedly.

"Oh." Jessica said before she could stop herself, "Sorry, guys. I hadn't expected there'd be people up here."

The four of them turned sharply upon hearing her voice, but their determination turned to absolute confusion at her apparent disinterest in their appearance, then almost disappointed.

Until she spoke again.

"Bit early for Hallowe'en, don't you think?" she remarked dryly. The person dressed as 'Raphael' scowled.

"This ain't no costume." He said, in a thick Brooklyn accent,

Jessica put her hands up, "Okay." She said, humouring him, "Is T-Con in town then?" she had attended T-Con only once, having found it overly hot, smelly, and full of what she dubbed the 'creepy fans' the ones who were somehow attracted to the turtles, and shipped them with each other, despite the fact that they were brothers.

But upon asking this question, she was met by blank looks.

"Okay, so _no_." she answered. _Must be cos-players, but holy crap__** that**__ is in character_. She thought, and she made to leave. But then she turned back to them, "By the by" Jessica grinned, "Credit where credit's due, guys."

"What?" they asked,

In response, pointed to the boy wearing the Raphael costume, "You got the chip out of the plastron just right." She turned to the boy in the Michelangelo costume, "and the freckles...just perfect." She grinned, and then turned to the boy dressed as Donatello. His mouth was hanging open, and she could clearly see the gap in his teeth, "You even put in the diastema!" she said,

"What?" asked 'Michelangelo'

"Diastema, Mikey." answered 'Donatello' "It's a gap between the front teeth."

"No, I mean, what about my freckles?" he pressed, covering his face with his hands, "What's wrong with them?"

"And what about the chip in my...what was it again?" asked 'Raphael', confused,

"Plastron, Raph." Said 'Leonardo' flatly, "It's a plastron."

"Yeah, that." He continued, and turned back to Jessica, "What do you mean '_credit where credit's due_'?"

Jessica smiled at him, "These are the most realistic TMNT costumes I've ever seen." She smiled, "Well, I say 'realistic'." She amended, using air quotes, "Media-accurate might be a better phrase. 2012 is probably the best one to go for – certainly easier than '87 or '03 – and don't even get me _started _on 1990." She shuddered,

The four boys looked at her uncomprehendingly. 'Leonardo' turned to 'Donatello'.

"What is she _talking_ about?" he asked, 'Donatello' shrugged.

"Oh," Jessica said, "I'm being rude. I'm Jessica, but you can call me Jessie." She held out a hand, but none of them took it.

"Hi...Jessie..." the four of them said uncertainly,

"What're your names?" she asked,

'Leonardo' pointed to himself, "I'm Leo..." He said, then he pointed to 'Raphael' "...this is Raph..." He pointed to 'Donatello', "...Don..." then he pointed to 'Michelangelo' "...and Mikey."

Jessica looked at them blankly for a moment. Then she burst out laughing.

"Oh!" she said, "That's a good one guys!" she laughed again, then tried to compose herself, "It's an honour to meet you _Hamato Leonardo_." She bowed to him as per Japanese custom.

"How do you know our surname?" asked 'Donatello'

Ignoring the word '_our_', Jessica answered, "How could I_ not_? I've been a fan since I was little."

"A fan of _what_?" asked 'Raphael'

"TMNT, _duh_." Jessica replied, "Though apparently, I'm not as big a fan as you guys." She added dryly,

"TMNT?" inquired 'Donatello', "What's that?"

Jessica blinked, "It's the acronym..." she replied, mildly concerned, "Are you guys just really in character?" she asked, "Or are you thick?"

"Hey!" 'Raphael' shouted, drawing his sai, "Watch it, Missy!"

Jessie gave him a look of derision, "Don't call me Missy, sai-boy." She said, and she walked over to him. She plucked a sai out of his hand (which only made him more furious) and looked at it. Her eyes widened, "This is sharp." She exclaimed, running a finger delicately along the edge of the blade.

"Yeah, I _sharpen_ them." 'Raphael' growled, snatching the weapon back,

"You _do_ know you need a weapon's permit to carry that, right?" she said, and turned to 'Leonardo' "Let me guess," she said, "Those are genuine katana strapped across your back?"

'Leonardo' shuffled his feet, "Maybe." He muttered,

"Okay, you guys have a _serious_ problem." She said flatly,

"You're only noticing this _now_?" 'Donatello' asked. He was more than a little concerned at her lack of a reaction to the fact that four giant turtles were standing on her roof.

"It's fine being a fan and all, and dressing up, but carrying_ genuine _weapons? I mean, you could get away with the bō staff, but not a naginata. Maybe the nunchucks, but not kusarigama. But sai and katana? _Really_?!"

'Donatello' looked at her, confused, "How...how do you know all this?" he asked, most people didn't even know the informal names for their weapons, but now this girl knew the proper ones.

"Because I watched the show since I was little." She said, with the air of a teacher explaining a question's answer to a pupil for the hundredth time. "Seriously, _are_ you idiots?"

"_What show_?" 'Raphael' asked angrily,

"Okay, you guys are officially _nuts_." She said, turning to leave, "If you get arrested, it's your own fault!" she called over her shoulder.

"Good riddance." 'Raphael' muttered,

"Wait, maybe she can tell us where we are." 'Donatello' said, "hey, Jessie?" he asked, and the girl turned back, somewhat apprehensively,

"What?" she asked bluntly, "And before you ask, no, I won't be the getaway driver for your little attack on the Foot Compound."

This statement brought more looks of concern for the four of them, looks that said '_how does she know about the Foot?_' and '_why does she think we need a getaway driver?_'. The sarcasm in the statement was lost on them, even to 'Raphael' who, all things considered, should have understood, since he was the wise-guy.

"Care to tell us where we are?"

Jessica rolled her eyes, but when along with it, "London, England. Oh, and before you ask, the year is 2018." She meant to add this as a sarcastic jab, but it didn't really work out that way.

"Wait, _what_?" 'Leonardo' squawked,

Jessica sighed, "Care to tell me why that's so surprising?" she asked,

"N...not five minutes ago, we were in New York, and it was 2013..." he replied.

"Oh my **_GOD_**!" she screamed, "_Are you guys fucking insane_?!" she yelled, scaring them all a little, "This _isn't_ funny!"

"_What_ isn't funny?!" Raphael roared back.

Jessica opened her mouth to shout back, but then closed it. For the first time, she looked at them. _Really_ looked at them. The clever – almost _too_ clever – costumes. The insane in-character-ness, even the same voice. And now, then genuine fear and concern and confusion as he processed that it was five years later than they thought, and a good three thousand miles East of _where_ they thought.

Jessica looked at them, comprehension dawning on her face, "Oh. My. _GOD_." She exclaimed, "You...you guys are the real deal?"

"What do you mean 'the real deal'?" Michelangelo asked,

"As in you're _really _Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo. You're _really_ mutant turtles, you're _really_ ninjas."

"Ding ding ding, give the girl a prize." Raphael said harshly,

"Don't take that tone with me." Jessica said indignantly,

"I'll talk to you how I like." He growled back, but he recoiled slightly as Jessica move forward, fist clenched. It was just a move to scare him, and it clearly worked. It was a valid reaction, most girls who saw him either weren't that feisty, or too scared because he was a turtle. Jessica smiled grimly as she spoke.

"Not if you want any help from me." She replied,

"And why would we need your help?" Raphael asked, but he stayed stood a little further back.

"Well, unless you want to go parading around in a dimension where you're famous characters, you're gonna need someone to help you survive." Jessica replied.

The four turtles blanched at that. _...in a dimension where you're famous characters..._? Oh no.

"We're in another dimension?" asked Leonardo numbly,

"Well, _yeah_." Jessica said, "You're _clearly_ not from here. You're _animated_ for crying out loud." They did at first look like they were in costume, but upon seeing that they weren't, they were clearly animated.

"Of _course_!" Donatello exclaimed, "_How_ did I not see that earlier?"

"Well that's one problem solved." Said Raphael,

"Oh?" asked Leonardo, "How? How does that solve anything? Like, how to get home?" he asked,

"We saw in the Kraang portal that we're not the only turtles," Raphael shrugged, referring to the 1987 turtles they had seen only days ago through the Kraang portal. "all we gotta do is find the ones _here_."

"Then we can get the 'me' who lives here to let us use their Kraang portal and send us home!" said Donatello, and the four of them breathed a sigh of relief. Then Jessica cleared her throat.

"Yeah..." she grinned nervously, "I'm afraid that's not gonna work, guys."

"Why not?" asked Leonardo,

Jessica gaped, "You really don't _know_?" she asked,

"Don't know _what_?" Raphael asked, slightly suspicious,

Michelangelo gulped, "We're not dead in this reality, are we?"

"Depends on your angle." Jessica replied, "If you're never born, are you really dead?"

"What are you talking about?" asked Donatello,

Jessica sighed, "Well, you see...in this dimension...you aren't real."

There was a moment of disbelieving silence.

"What do you mean, _we're not real_?" asked Michelangelo, "We're right _here_!"

"Yeah, but you're not from _this_ dimension, are you?" Jessica countered,

"But you've heard of us." Said Donatello,

"Yes, but-"

"Then what do you mean?" asked Leonardo. Jessica groaned inwardly.

"I think the only way you'll understand is if I show you." She told them, so she beckoned for them to follow her.

The turtles looked at her retreating form for a moment. For a brief while, they considered just making a run for it, but she seemed to be speaking the truth. And since even Donatello didn't have the answers, she was probably their best bet. So, they made their way down the buildings staircase, running to catch up with her, eventually coming into Jessica's hallway. There were three doors: the front door, through which they just come; a door that led to a small cupboard filled with coats, shoes, hats, scarves, umbrellas ect; and the door to the living room. Jessica held out her hand to them, and they merely looked at it, confused. After a moment, she said, "Weapons." and the four of them grudgingly handed them over, and watched as they were put in the coat cupboard. Putting a finger to her lips, Jessica opened this third door just enough to poke her head through.

"Amanda!" she said, "I need you to go into your room for a bit!"

"Awww!" came Amanda's reply, "Why?"

"Grown up stuff, sweetie."

"No _fair_!"

Jessica sighed, "You get to pick what we have for dinner." She bribed,

"Okay!" Amanda said brightly, and raced off into the guest bedroom, closing the door behind her. Within seconds, Jessica could hear music playing over the stereo.

"Alright, now be _very quiet_." Jessica told the four turtles, leading them into her living room. They walked in silently, and it was no effort to do so.

"Sit." She commanded, and they sat down on her sofa, somewhat meekly. Jessica's fingers glided down the DVD rack in the corner of the room, fingers slowing to hover over a particular shelf (they couldn't read the DVD spines from here, but they were the DVD's for the 2003 and 2012 shows, along with the 2007 movie). Eventually, Jessica picked and pulled out a DVD box set from the shelf and slotted in the first disk – TMNT 2012, Season 1 – and pressed 'Play' on the first episode.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – Flatmates**

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><p>The four turtles in her sofa watched the screen in confusion, as they saw the events of their fifteenth birthday play out, down to the last letter. For the next half hour, they watched, confused and slightly scared. Jessica sat down in the chair next to the sofa, watching their reactions more than the episode, but still sniggering at familiar jokes such as "What's the icing made of?" "You don't wanna know" and "I never thought I'd taste anything better than worms and algae, but this is amazing!" She smiled with nostaligia, but the turtles' faces wre blank and wide with terror and confusion.<p>

Once it was over, Leonardo turned to Jessica. None of the others did because they were somewhat preoccupied by their own thoughts. Raphael looked angry, clearly thinking that someone was spying on them; eyes blazing with a protective rage that some sick creatures were spying on his family. Donatello was intrigued, staring at the screen as if he'd never seen a TV before; astounded and enamoured that such a normal-looking object could be the source of such a peculiar and fantastical phenomenon. Michelangelo looked terrified, his baby-blue eyes big and round. He had curled up on the sofa with his head on Leonardo's chest. Leonardo had one protective arm around his youngest brother, looking fairly scared himself.

"Wha..._what_?" he asked quietly, looking to Jessica for an explanation.

"Like I said." Jessica told them gently, "In this dimension, you're not real."

"But..._how_?" asked Donatello quietly, ripping his gaze from the television.

"You're fictional characters in this reality." She replied,

"Earlier..." Michelangelo muttered, "You said something about 2003 and 2012...what was that about?" His brothers were a little surprised that he had remembered this, but Jessica merely pulled out her laptop, and typed _Turtlepedia_ into Google. There, she showed them all that they were, had been, and (in their case) would be.

"You guys started out as black-and-white comics." She told them, "Created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird." She pointed to the corresponding pictures, "In 1987, it was turned into a TVshow – which you guys saw through the portal. In 1990 it became a trilogy of live-action films, and in 2003, it was adapted into another show." She pointed to the turtles from the 2003 show, "This is the version _I_ watched." She told them.

"At least we don't look like dorks in this one." Michelangelo muttered,

"I think April looked better in the jumpsuit." Donatello remarked, looking at the April O'Neil of 2003. _She_ wore brown trousers and a purple t-shirt.

"Casey looks pretty cool." Raphael said, "Long hair suits the guy."

Rolling her eyes, Jessica then pointed to a very strange looking picture of the four, "In 2007, a CGI film was produced – that's my favourite TMNT film – and in 2012, you were once again remodelled into a show." She looked at them, "That's _your_ generation. In 2014, another film was made. It wasn't great, but it wasn't nearly as bad as everyone thought it'd be."

There was a pause. Then:

"We..." said Raphael faintly, "We were a _live action film_?" he shuddered as he saw the screenshots.

"'fraid so. It was a show for a period, too, but I never wathed it. I don;t know much about it, and frankly, I don't _want_ to." Jessica replied, then raised a hand as though attempting to physically wave away the conversational tanget, "But that's not the issue here."

"Jessie's right, guys." Said Leonardo, "We need to figure out a way to get home."

"But _how_?" asked Raphael, "The only way we can get out is with a Kraang portal, and there _are_ no Kraang in this dimension."

"Well it seems that we're not going anywhere until the next portal opens." Said Donatello, "But I think it's safe to assume that a portal will open of it's own accord after a while."

"And why's that?" asked Raphael,

Donatello smiled, "We don't belong here. This isn't just another dimension, this is another _universe_. We are very out of place, and this universe, if its laws are anything like ours, will want to spit us back to where we came from as much as possible. It's just a matter of waiting."

"But that could be _weeks_ from now!" Michelangelo exclaimed, "We can't wait that long!"

"Mikey's right-" Leonardo began, receiving strange looks from his brothers, "Yeah, I'm shocked too, but he's _right_." He sighed, "Until another portal opens, there's no way we're getting home. We need a place to crash, we need food."

"So we stay in the sewers." Raphael shrugged, "Easy."

Jessica let out a sound of protest, "A-ha, **_no_**. Not a chance." She said,

"Really?" said Raphael, not a hint of sincerity in his voice, "And _you're_ going to stop us, are you?"

"No, I'm telling you that you can't squat in London's sewer network!" she looked at them incredulously, "What if you get _caught_?!"

"We never have before." Donatello shrugged,

Jessica facepalmed, "That was by _design_ you **_idiots_**." She said, exasperatedly, ignoring Raphael's growl at her calling them idiots. Again.

"Remember," she continued, "You were **_written_**. _Planned._ Down to the last _crack_ on your _shells_. If you go out now, _nothing_ is planned. You could very well end up on another table like Bishop's, and there will be _no_ sure-fire escape! **_OR_** you could get recognised, and end up having your whole _reality_ invaded."

The turtles all paled.

"Who's Bishop?" asked Leonardo. Jessica paused for a moment, then waved the statement away,

"Never mind, wrong era." She said. Bishop was a character from the 2003 generation. "The point is, you can't wander around, even in the sewers – people work down there, y'know. You need to lay low."

"How about we stay here, then?" said Mikey, "You seem to know what's gonna happen before we do. And you already know about us being here anyway."

"That sounds like a good plan." Said Donatello,

"Could be worse, I guess." Said Raphael, "As long as there are no cockroaches."

Jessica glared at him, "Watch it, sai-boy." She said dangerously, so much so that Raphael looked genuinely surprised at her tone,

"What?" he asked,

"I live in an apartment, not a dustbin." She said, "Of _course _there are no cockroaches!"

Raphael bit his lip nervously, "Oh, yeah. Right." He said, "Sorry, Jessie."

"Hmm." She said, but she didn't seem too annoyed, since he had apologised.

"So it's settled." Said Leonardo, looking to his brothers, "We'll lay low, and stay here." There were several nods and murmurs of agreement from his brothers, and each of them started surveying the room for the best place to set up a bed.

"Excuse me?" Jessie interjected, cutting through their thoughts, "Don't _I_ get a say in this? It _is_ my home and all."

The turtles looked at her, nervous, "So we can't stay?" Donatello asked,

"Not unless you actually _ask_ to, instead of inviting yourselves in." she said. There was a pause, then:

"Jessie, can we stay at your place?" four amphibian voices chorused,

She smiled calmly, "Sure." She said, "However, you'll have to keep a low profile, which means, we're laying down some ground rules."

"Such as?" asked Donatello,

"First off, no weapons." Said Jessica, and this was met with several protests,

"**_WHAT_**?!"

"But how can I _practice_?"

"My chucks? No, _way_!"

"Meh, fine. It's not like you can use a staff in here anyway."

"Zip it!" Jessica commanded, and they zipped it, "If you get discovered, weapons are only going to make things _more_ awkward, and I don't trust you guys with blades in a confined space. Need I remind you, I've seen your training equipment?" She looked at Raphael, one eyebrow raised. "I have _no_ desire to spend the next week re-plastering my walls." Somewhat guiltily, Raphael thought of his punch-bag in the lair at home, covered in stitches where it had split open, and full of sharp weapons sticking out of it every which way. He had never bothered to take them out, and found it a more interesting exercise if there was a chance he'd cut his hand open; it made his aim more accurate.

"Besides," she continued, "You can't carry weapons without a permit, and I _highly_ doubt you guys have one."

"_Fine_." Grumbled Raphael and Leonardo. Michelangelo pouted, but did not protest. Donatello merely shrugged.

"Secondly," Jessica continued, "You leave everything as you find it. I don't want empty pizza boxes all over the place."

The four of them nodded, having expected as much. However, they had a feeling that Jessica would be a far for dangerous force to reckon with if they disobeyed. Granted, she probably couldn't hurt them, for several reasons, but she still knew what they hated doing. As well as their deepest secrets.

"Third, if you want to go outside, you come to me first."

"Okay." They replied. They were not sure why this was necessary, but they supposed that Jessie knew best.

"Fourth, for the _love of GOD_ and your sanity, don't look yourselves up without an episode-era code."

"A what-what code?" Donatello asked,

"Episode-era." Jessica repeated, "Say I wanted the...twelfth episode, of the first season of _your_ era. Your era started in 2012, so I would type in 'TMNT 2012' since I want an episode in the first season, I would then type 'S01' and since I want the twelfth episode, I would type in 'E12'." She wrote it down on a piece of paper; _TMNT S01E12_. "Don't look anything up without one of these" she said, "You won't like what you find."

Of course, the turtles couldn't look _anything_ up for a while – because Amanda had decided that it was time for lunch and had come out of her room to say so. Jessica didn't even bother telling her newest guests to hide, and the turtles were a little disappointed in their hiding places when she didn't react to their sudden disappearances.

"I'm hungry, Jess." She said,

"Well then, what should we have to eat?" asked Jessica, picking up her little niece and putting her on her hip. Amanda giggled as Jessica prodded her tummy.

"I want pizza!" she squealed.

In their respective hiding places, the four turtles secretly went "_Yes_!" made small air-punches, and small sighs of relief. Jessica chuckled as she imagined the turtles doing just that.

"Okay," was what she said out loud, "What kind do you want?"

"Just normal." She shrugged,

"Okay, so that's one margarita." Jessica replied, "And one pepperoni."

"I get a _whole_ pizza?" Amanda asked,

"Maybe." Jessica smiled, _No. I'm getting the second for the guys._ She thought, _question is, how do I justify not eating mine? ...Meh, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it_. She set Amanda down on the sofa, before jerking her up sharply again when she heard an "oof!" that could only have come from the turtle that was hiding underneath the sofa. Amanda looked at her aunt, confused.

"Didn't you hear that sound?" Jessica asked, blessing her brain for coming up with an excuse so quickly,

"What sound?" Amanda asked,

"That...creak." Jessica told her, "That was a spring. If you sit down on the sofa, and it makes that sound, you have to get up, or a spring might pop out. And springs are sharp."

Oddly enough, Amanda decided to sit on the chair after that. Jessica bent down beside the sofa, muttering something about lost change to her niece, before whispering to – as it turned out, it was Leonardo – "Sorry!"

"No worries." He whispered back, "Could be worse. Raphael's crouching behind the TV." One wall of Jessica's living room was dedicated to a large shelf system that spanned the whole wall. Jessica's television was a flatscreen, and filled almost the entire section that it was stood in, and the only way to get behind it was by turning the television like a kissing gate, sliding through, and then turning it back into place. The fact that it was flatscreen meant that there was an eighteen inch (45cm thereabouts) gap between the back of the shelf system and the back of the TV. Jessica crossed over to the television, (Amanda was instead interested in the book she had brought out of the room with her, and was reading it, oblivious to the strange actions of her aunt) and peeked behind it. Sure enough, she found Raphael sat behind it, parallel to the TV, legs stretched out in front of him, back resting against one side of the shelf section, feet against the other. Being relatively broad-shouldered, it was a bit of a tight fit.

"You okay?" she asked. He shrugged in reply. The silence was a good idea, because his voice, being quite loud, carried a lot easier than, say, Donatello's slightly higher-pitched, soft-spoken tone.

"Good." She said, and pushed the TV back in place.

Upon closer looking around, she saw the tip of a purple mask on top of her bookcase, and a green blur below her window – Michelangelo had leapt through the window and was on the fire-escape. Satisfied that they were all well hidden and safe (provided no one else in the building decided to take the fire-escape for the next few minutes) Jessica ordered the pizzas and told Amanda that they would arrive in half an hour. Then she suggested,

"Why don't you wait in your room, Ammy?" Jessica said,

"Why?" was the answer she got,

"Because...because..." Jessica struggled for an answer, "I want to look at the sofa, check that spring." She paused, _that's not good enough..._ "And sometimes, a spring can pop out hurt someone."

"Okay." Amanda asked no further questions, and toddled off to her room. There was a _thud_ as Donatello jumped down from the top of the bookcase, Leonardo crawled out from under the sofa, and Michelangelo climbed in back through the window. The weather had taken a sudden turn for the worst, and the orange-masked turtle was shivering a little. It was mid-October and hardly warm.

There was a muffled cry of, "Little help?" from behind the television. Jessica made to move the TV, but Michelangelo took her wrist. His skin felt like rubber, not in a bad way, just like rubber.

"Think about what you're doing." He said, "Why might actually have a bit of Raph free time." He said solemnly.

"No." she said flatly, "It'll overheat if he stays back there." She pushed the TV back, allowing Raphael exit.

"What was that you were saying, Mikey?" he asked in a dangerous voice, and he moved towards his youngest brother. However, as he passed Jessica, she took hold the tails of his mask, almost lazily, causing him to jerk back suddenly, eyes bugging in surprise,

"And no." she said, equally flatly. "You guys can wait in the utility room."

"The what room?" asked Leonardo,

"It's at the end of the kitchen, where I keep the washing machine and stuff. Amanda never goes in there, so you'll be safe."

"That sounds boring." Said Michelangelo,

"I think I have a box or two of old comics in there, but-" Jessica began, but found that she was talking to thin air, Michelangelo having sped off to the utility room upon hearing 'comics'.

"You lied, didn't you?" Donatello said in an amused voice,

"Maybe." Jessica smiled, "I have no idea what's in the boxes. Just get yourselves in there before he finds out." She ushered them into the utility room and, for good measure, slid the bolt across the door, locking them in.

"Don't break down the door." Jessica said sternly, "I don't want to have to buy a new one. I'll give you the pizza later, and I'll let you out when Ammy goes into her room."

There were muffled acknowledgements of this, and Jessica went into the living room.

"Amanda!" she called, "I finished checking the sofa, it's safe." Her niece emerged from the guest bedroom hesitantly, but smiled once she saw that indeed, the sofa was safe, nothing having actually been done to it, not that she knew.

Amanda plopped herself on the sofa, in front of the television, and switched it on. After twenty minutes, there was a ring at the doorbell, and their pizzas had arrived. Jessica took them, paid the guy, and set the box labelled _margarita_ on the table, where two plates stood, ready and waiting. Jessica then opened the second box, sniffed it, and pretended to gag.

"Urgh!" she said, "On second thoughts," she said, "I'll share your one, Ammy."

"That's fine with me." Her niece smiled, and she moved to the table, pried open the box, and took a slice for herself. Jessica took the second box back into the utility room, and unbolted the door. She found the four turtles sat on the floor, cross-legged, and playing with a set of cards they had found in an old box.

Their faced lit up upon seeing the pizza box, and they made to grab it, but Jessica held it high above her head. She was already a foot taller than them, so there was no way they could reach it from _there_.

"Two slices each, boys." She said, "Because there's only one pizza for the lot of you."

They looked a little _less_ pleased at that, but they didn't complain, for they were hungry enough that they just wanted the pizza _now_. Jessica passed them the box, and re-bolted the door, and then joined her niece in the living room.

After a satisfying meal of pizza and ice cream, Amanda retreated to her bedroom. Jessica then let the four of them out of the utility room.

"Oh thank _God_!" Donatello exclaimed, "I don't think I could take another came of Go Fish with Mikey." He turned to his younger brother "_How_ are you so good at that game?"

"'s easy," Michelangelo replied nonchalantly, "I'm awesome."

"That's a matter of opinion." Leonardo said dryly, "I would kill for some Space Heroes right now."

"Sorry, Leo." Jessica interjected, "No Space Heroes in this dimension. But _Friends _is pretty good."

"_Friends_?" asked Leonardo, in reply, Jessica pulled out another disk from her DVD shelf and slotted it into the disk drive.

"Do you watch _anything_ off satellite?" Raphael asked,

"No." she replied, "Most of what I watch is on DVDs, or I stream them through my computer." The four turtles didn't bother asking what 'streaming' was, mostly because, as soon as _Friends_ started, they were intrigued.

"Aw, Ross is so crazy about Rachel, that's cute." Said Donatello,

"I like Joey, he's funny." Michelangelo grinned,

"Eh...I prefer Chandler." Raphael shrugged. He was trying to look cool, but it was clear that he was as engaged as the rest of them.

Leonardo turned to Jessica, "Do you think they're aware that the guys on TV are basically themselves?" he asked,

"Probably not..." said Jessica, mildly amused, but she made no further comment.

Since Amanda was very content in staying in her room, only coming out once or twice to get a drink of juice or go to the toilet, the turtles and Jessica spent the rest of the day was spent watching episode after episode of _Friends_. There was a short interlude for dinner (in which Utility-Room-Go-Fish resumed) and then another two hours. Eventually, at about nine pm, Jessica announced that she was tired, and she had to look after Amanda anyway.

"Keep it down boys," she said, "Wake me up if a portal pops up." She added, grinning.

"Night, Jessie," they chorused, smiling, but they only looked away for but a few seconds before turning their attention back to the TV.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – William And JJ**

* * *

><p>The next morning was...difficult.<p>

Jessica had a tendency to wake up very early (six, sometimes five in the morning), maybe get a bite to eat, and then retreat back to her room for another few hours' sleep. On this particular say she was watching the toaster sleepily, drinking tea. She wasn't going to have coffee _just_ yet, since she wasn't ready to wake up.

Michelangelo, ever the playful, and somewhat considerate one, woke up whilst Jessica was watching the toaster. He was also a "sneaky little bugger" as Jessica described him, and decided that he would creep up behind her, and give her a bit of a shock.

Bad move.

Because she had forgotten that she now had guests, Jessica was under the impression that there was a house-breaker in her flat when Michelangelo tapped her shoulder suddenly and called "_surprise!_" It didn't help that she was still sleepy. Upon being tapped on the shoulder, Jessica made a noise. That noise being a shriek worthy of a Disney princess who just found a big ugly rat in her room. Of course, Jessica didn't just shriek, but turned around and slammed her mug down (hard) directly on Michelangelo's head. There was a loud _smash_ as the ceramic shattered against the turtle's skull. It was only after Michelangelo made a high, quiet "_hheeeeeeee!_" sound, biting his lower lip and clearly resisting the urge to cry out, that Jessica realised that he was not a house-breaker, but, in fact, a guest.

"Oops..." she mumbled, "Sorry, Mikey."

"N...n...no problem." He replied dazedly, "I'm...I'm going back to bed." He staggered off back to his makeshift bed in a zig-zag direction. Jessica vaguely noted that none of her other guests had stirred awake at the sound. In retrospect, that was probably a good thing, Jessica didn't have many mugs. She watching Michelangelo fall asleep once more with some concern. Then she looked down at the tea-and-mug splatter on her kitchen floor, shrugged, and went back to bed herself. She completely forgot about her toast, which later became part of Donatello's breakfast.

* * *

><p>Because Amanda knowing about them would only serve to cause more trouble, the turtles had to stay out of her sight. It wouldn't have been particularly difficult on a normal weekday, as she was out of the house by half eight. Jessica would have been out of the house from that point too. At three 'o'clock, Amanda and Jessica would have returned home from work and pre-school, respectively. Weekend would also usually be easy. Amanda typically stayed in her room until ten in the morning, when she finally got hungry. At which point, she would come out of her room, make some toast, and plop herself down in front of the TV until about one.<p>

But this was not a normal morning, because _A_, it was half-term. And _B_, Nathan had come home from his business trip, and was picking Amanda up.

Though he had a minor concussion, Michelangelo, as per the norm, was making breakfast in the kitchen, whilst Leonardo and Raphael sparred (weaponless) on Jessica's floor, in between Donatello and the television. He was like a seesaw, leaning from side to side on the sofa, trying to get a decent view of the picture. However, he couldn't say anything to get them to move, because they had to be quiet. Unfortunately, the TV had to be kept to a minimum volume too, and because Leonardo and Raphael were sparring _right in front of the TV_, Donatello couldn't see the subtitles either.

As it was, they had had to sleep in..._creative_ places. Just before Jessica's turning in the previous night, they had assigned themselves places to sleep. Being the youngest and best at making puppy-dog-eyes, Michelangelo got first pick, and had chosen the sofa. Being the eldest, Leonardo got second pick, and he chose the camp-bed that was usually stored in Jessica's room (which had been moved into the living room). Being the stronger of the two remaining, Raphael got third pick, and went for an inflatable mattress next to the sofa. Poor Donatello got last pick, and he ended up on the floor. As it turned out, Jessica did not own two air mattresses. He had to make do with a spare duvet folded over several times, however, she had promised to try and borrow one from a friend.

Anyway, they had woken up at about seven, they were used to early morning training, or late night training, often both. Three of them had been _this_ close to actually jumping out Jessica's windows until Donatello, ever the more reasonable of the group, reminded them that they were neither in their universe nor New York, and there was a very real chance that they would either be spotted, or end up as splatters on the pavement. Therefore, they could not leave the apartment. None of them had particularly good geographical skills, and so had had to _actually look up_ London. They were a good three and a half thousand miles (give or take) from New York, which didn't exactly sit well with any of them. Donatello had promptly sat down in front of the television, and Leonardo and Raphael, who desperately needed to stretch themselves, decided to spar.

Leonardo was on top of Raphael, pinning him to the ground. Raphael grabbed Leonardo's shoulders and fixed his feet under Leonardo's belly, then he kicked up, sending the eldest turtle over him and to the floor, pinning him.

"I win." Raphael said smugly,

"Hmph." Leonardo replied, "I bet you couldn't beat me if we had our weapons."

"I totally could." The red-masked turtle answered,

"I doubt it."

"Wanna prove it?"

"We can't, not since your _last_ sparring match resulted in a new nail-hole." Donatello interjected grumpily, pointing upwards to the wall where, sure enough, there was hole about the size of Raphael's sai-prong. Raphael and Leonardo had been sparring late last night, and had retrieved their weapons from the coat cupboard. To say the least, they now knew that Jessica really wasn't someone you wanted to cross.

_It was about half an hour after Jessica had gone to sleep, when there was a loud, metallic _**THUD**_ from the living room. Quick as a shot, Jessica was out of bed, in the living room, fists raised, wearing a yellow t-shirt and a pair of green pyjama shorts. After a few seconds, she came to her senses. Unfortunately for them. It was only because she remembered at the last minute that Amanda was asleep that she did not scream her head off._

_"__**What**__," she asked, her voice dangerous and deadly quiet, "Are you doing?" she glared at Raphael and Leonardo. Sensing danger, they two of them looked down at their weapons with an expression of surprise, as if they had only just noticed that the weapons were in their hands. It was rather difficult for Raphael to do, as he was stood on the wall itself, trying to pull his sai from it. It was embedded so deep, that he was actually pushing off the wall with his feet, and so was standing horizontally._

_"Oh, er..." said Leonardo, "We were just...um..." he gulped, "...practising?"_

_"Rule number one, Hamato Leonardo." She said. Raphael grinned at Leonardo's getting told off, but the grin vanished when Jessica turned for him, "Don't think you're getting off lightly, Raphael." She glanced up at the sai in the wall, "That is clearly __**your**_ _fault," Rapheal hurriedly gave the sai another tug, and it came free from the wall. He fell to the floor with an unceremonious _**THUD**_, "I told you no weapons. Hand them over. _**Now**_." _

_The eldest two turtles did so, and watched as Jessica put them back into the coat cupboard, locked it, and went back to sleep. Though she had done nothing to them, they were unused to such strict rules from a female. Perhaps this is what mothers were like, they wondered; terrifying even without elaborate threats._

So the two of them sat down on the sofa beside their eldest brother and resolved to simply watching television. Eventually, Michelangelo came through, with breakfast, and the four of them were sat on the sofa, watching cartoons, eating toast.

At about nine, Nathan arrived.

He had his own key to Jessica's apartment, so just let himself in. And because the four turtles were completely immersed in a cartoon, they didn't hear the lock click. In fact, they didn't even notice Nathan until,

"_AAARGGH_!" Nathan had just walked in from the hall, but leapt back in shock. Equally surprised, the four turtles responded with,

"**_AAARGGH_**!"

Jessica came running out of her room in a flash, still in her pyjamas. Her hair was in a loose ponytail and she was holding a baseball bat. Instead of angry or scared, she exited her bedroom screaming, "_ON THE FLOOR, __**NOW**__! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEADS!_"

Panicking, the four turtles did so, and Nathan merely recoiled. He was used to his little sister's antics, but he had to admit, it had been a while since he had seen that happen, and **_boy_** was it a surprise. He knew exactly why she reacted like this – more than once, someone actually _had_ broken into the flat, it wasn't the greatest neighbourhood. Thankfully, though, after a few seconds, Jessica came to her senses and became aware of her surroundings.

"Oh." She said numbly, "Morning, Nate." She grinned nervously, propping the bat over one shoulder. "You guys can get up." She added, seeing the four turtles lying face down on the floor, their hands clapped protectively over the backs of their skulls.

"_Morning, Nate_?" the young man exclaimed, "Is _that_ all you have to say to me? What the hell are _those_?" he cried, pointing to the four turtles that were still crouched on the floor. Well, three turtles and one shell. Michelangelo had completely retreated, but once the yelling stopped, and Leonardo nudging him with his foot, his head popped out, quickly followed by his arms and legs. Jessica's eyes widened, all traces of sleep gone from her.

"Oh...uh..." She said, "I guess you just met my friends." _Oh crap, oh crap, oh __**crap**__!_ She thought.

"Friends?" he squawked, "What are they? _Cos-players_?"

Jessica mentally snapped her fingers, "Yes!" she cried, "They're cos-players! Nate," she said, "I'd like you to meet, er..." she looked at the turtles, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael, "I'd like you to meet...Martin...Luke...Daniel and..." she couldn't think of any boys names beginning with 'R' and panicked, eventually blurting out, "William."

_William? _Raphael asked mentally, _seriously? You couldn't call me Robert or something? Ryan? Richard? _

"Oh." Nathan said blankly, "Hi, guys. Nice to meet you...I _guess_? I'm Nate." He extended a hand to 'Daniel'

"Amanda's father?" asked Donatello, taking the hand and smiling,

"Er, yeah." He said, confused at how 'Daniel' knew this. He turned back to Jessica, "She ready to go, then, JJ?" The four turtles sniggered at the nickname 'JJ'.

Well, three of them did. Jessica raised an eyebrow at them as if to say, _yes?_ And Raphael stopped, remembering that he was, for all intents and purposes, now called _William_. The only thing more humiliating, he reckoned, was the nicknames that came with it. Willy. Bill. Billy.

"She's not even awake yet." Jessica said to her brother, "Give me five minutes to get her up, you guys wait here." She threw the baseball bat to Donatello, who caught it clumsily, and then wandered into Amanda's room. Nathan and the turtles sat themselves down in awkward silence. Nathan on the chair, the four turtles on the sofa.

"So..." Nathan said, "How do you know JJ?"

"We're...childhood friends." Said Leonardo, _Its half true, if you think about it._ He thought,

"Oh, cool, cool." Nathan replied, somewhat awkwardly. There was a pause whilst he thought this over, then his face contorted in confusion, "How come I've never met you?" he asked,

"Oh, it was when you were at different schools." Leonardo replied smoothly, much to the surprise of his brothers. Leonardo usually had a great deal of difficulty lying. He was surprising himself, to be honest.

After another _agonisingly_ awkward three minutes, Jessica returned to the living room, and announced that Amanda was _finally_ awake and was getting ready to leave. Seeing how uncomfortable all of them were, she offered her brother some coffee. He gladly accepted, and the awkward silence between her brother and her newest...friends, continued. But only for a moment.

"Oh my God, _guys_!" Jessica shrieked, her voice coming from the trashed kitchen, "Michaelan-..._MARTIN_!" she corrected, "Would it have killed you to clean up the mess you made?" she prodded an orange peel, "And have you heard of a _carton_ of fruit juice?! I already had orange juice in the fridge!" She came out, brandishing a mop, "I don't care if you grew up in the sewers-" this was a clever piece of wordplay, for Nathan thought she was just paraphrasing 'growing up in a barn', whilst the turtles knew she was having an actual dig, "-in _my_ apartment, you clear up your messes!"

"Wait, you had breakfast here?" said Nathan,

"Er, yeah." Jessica replied, in a way that said, _what's it to you?_

"So they stayed overnight?" he continued, now the big-brother part of him was showing.

Michelangelo said "Yes." Before he thought, earning a slap from Raphael. Nathan's demeanour changed from awkward guest to fuming elder brother.

"They slept in here." Said Jessica flatly, gesturing to the living room that had clearly played host to three of them, and she turned to her brother, "And so what if they _did_ stay the night?"

"Hmm..." was Nathan's reply, he had clearly noticed that there were only three beds in the room (Donatello's duvet having been moved onto the camp bed, and so looking like part of Leonardo's bed), "I don't like the idea of a bunch of guys staying around my little sister's apartment." He paused, "Even less when my daughter's there too." He said grimly, and turned to the four of them, "You sure you're just..._friends_?" he asked them,

"Nathan!" Jessica cried, "I am _not_..." she paused, grimacing, and shuddered violently, "I am not _sleeping_ with them! _Any_ of them! How can you imply that?! _And_ that they might..._do_ something to me or Ammy?"

"In all truth I think I'm damn well allowed to worry about that!"

There was a beat of silence.

For the turtles, this silence was confused. They didn't quite understand what Nathan was getting at. Did he think they might get her hurt? They were sleeping in Jessie's living room, not taking her bungee jumping.

Jessica glared at him, "Oh my **_God_**!" she cried, "Get your mind out of the gutter! They're _friends_!"

"And how old are they?" asked Nathan, "'cause they look about seventeen in those costumes." He threw them a look, "And seventeen's as dangerous as they come." He added darkly.

"_Take that back_!" Jessica shrieked, "Nathanial Liam Carter _you take that __**back**_!"

There was another fraction-of-a-second of silence. Jessica seemed to be mentally holding herself in. The turtles watched as they saw all too clearly that she was watching a horrible memory replay in her mind's eye.

But Nathan most certainly did not take it back. "I'm not wrong! How old _are_ they?"

Hating herself for obeying him, Jessica did a quick mental calculation. _If they were 15 in 2012 then in 2018 they'd be..._

"They're twenty one." She said triumphantly, then, thinking that didn't really make sense if they were all the same age, "Danny's twenty-two." Leonardo opened his mouth to complain, saying _he_ was the oldest, but then saw that, considering Donnie's height, it made more sense. Not to mention, he didn't really want to jump into this argument. Sure, they didn't have weapons, but somehow this fight seemed much worse than the ones he had with his brothers.

However, before the argument could continue, Amanda emerged from her room. Somehow, by methods known only to the psyche of a four-year-old, she had managed to remain oblivious to the argument that had just occurred.

"Who're you?" she asked Leonardo, in the blunt, unabashed way that only four-year-olds do. He smiled, thinking back to his moments as _Mr Turtle_ when he was retrieving the mutagen from that young girl.

"He's a _friend_." Jessica said shortly, glaring at her brother.

"I'm Amanda." She smiled, holding out a hand to the four of them. She was evidently unfazed by their strange appearance. Leonardo made to shake her outstretched hand, but Nathan stepped inbetween them and picked her up sharply.

"We have to go." He told her firmly. "Say goodbye to Auntie Jessie."

Amanda was clearly annoyed at not being introduced to these strange friends of her aunt's, but made no comment as she said goodbye to her aunt and waved cheerfully at the five of them as her father carried her out.

"Oh, one more thing." Nathan added, just as he was out the door, "I got given some extra time off, so you won't need to worry about Ammy for the next couple of weeks." and they left.

Jessica seriously doubted that he had actually been given extra time off, and that the real reason was because of her guests. But she made no comment, as the less time she had to spend convincing her niece that they were just wearing costumes, the better. Even four-year-olds could tell when a trick got _too_ silly.

Relieved, Jessica closed the door behind them, and leant against it with a sigh.

"Er...Jessie?" Donatello asked, and she turned to him,

"Mm?"

"Are...are you okay?" he asked, "You looked...you didn't look good...earlier." They thought back to how she had seemed to be holding herself together. They didn't know much about this world or humans, but they knew a painful memory when they saw one.

Jessica sighed, and her heavy reply was this, "In your universe, you battle the Shredder and the Kraang. I only pray, that whilst you're in mine, you don't find out how lucky you are, and how easy you really have it."

Then she retreated back into her room to get dressed. But for the rest of the day, Jessie was reclusive and quiet, and the turtles did little else aside from watch whatever was on the freeview channels. All in all, it was a quiet, subdued day. At some point, a young man knocked on Jessie's apartment door, asking if she was alright. Jessie did not answer, only poking her head out of her bedroom to tell the turtles to be _completely_ silent until he went away. Eventually, the man did, and there was the sound of retreating footsteps. Later, when Leonardo thought he heard someone knocking and poked his head out of the apartment's front door, he saw a small bunch of lilacs tied with a ribbon on the doorstep. There was a small note attached to the flowers, that read '_as if I'd let anything happen to you_'_._ When he showed them to Jessica, all she managed was a weak smile.

But, when dinner time rolled around, the arrival of the flowers seemed to have aided her in dealing with whatever that memory had been, because she came out of her room and ordered pizza for all of them, and was as pleasant as could be.

* * *

><p>Saturday morning passed with considerably less fuss; now that Amanda was gone, the turtles did not all have to sleep in Jessie's living room. Jessica borrowed an air mattress from one of the other building's tenants – some guy called Jack – for Donatello to sleep on. He and Leonardo (who had swapped his camp bed for Raphael's mattress) slept in Amanda's room, on either side of her bed. Jessica had point blank refused to let either of them sleep <em>on<em> it, because it just felt strange having someone else – even more so a _male_ someone else – sleeping in her niece's bed. Michelangelo stayed on the sofa, which was totally fine with everyone as he was always the first awake anyway, and Raphael (now on the camp bed) slept in Jessica's room.

At first, the others were confused as to why Raphael didn't just sleep in the living room with Michelangelo, he _was_ always very protective of his brothers, Mikey especially. They just assumed that it was because he didn't want to be woken at six am by a hyperactive little brother. However, Jessica knew why.

After dealing with two nights of Raphael's loud snores shaking her apartment to its foundations, Jessica had gone out and bought a packet of snoring strips. They worked on mutated turtles as well as they did on humans – possibly better – and Raphael's snores were silenced. But because his brothers were all used to the noise, and they fell asleep before him _anyway_, they noticed nothing. Nonetheless, Raphael used them for Jessica' sake, after hearing, last night, an angry neighbour or two banging on the walls, floors and ceiling. The reason as to why he was sleeping in Jessie's room was because they made him look stupid.

So, on the turtles' third day in the human dimension – or fourth. They had arrived on Wednesday, now it was Saturday – Jessica was up surprisingly early. Once she deemed herself fit to face the world, she emerged from her room with an air of purpose about her. Her hair was in a high ponytail, and she was wearing normal jeans, a purple t-shirt and white-and-blue trainers. She also had a dark blue hoodie and a handbag slung over one arm, which she threw onto the sofa. All of this made it look like she was going into the city. But in her other hand, she held a tape measure.

"Angel of the North." She commanded to her seemingly empty living room.

"What?" came four amphibian voices. They were once again sat on her sofa, watching cartoons. Because they were so short, you couldn't see their heads over the back.

"Angel. Of. The. North." She repeated slowly,

"What?" they repeated, also slowly.

Jessica rolled her eyes, "It's a statue in the North of England, and it looks a little bit like someone doing _this_." She stood to attention, except her arms were straight out to the sides and rigid, palms facing down.

"So," she continued, relaxing her pose, "Angel of the North."

Her explanation had really raised more questions than it answered, but they obliged, standing as she had done. Jessica took the tape measure and began to measure the four of them. First she measured Donatello. She stepped on the metal tab at the end of the measure and held the other in her hand, noting his total height. She wrapped the tape measure around the widest point of his shell, his shoulder-to-his-wrist, his waist-to-his-ankles, and around his forehead. Finally, she measured the length of his foot before grimacing and scratching the last measurement out. She wrote down the measurements in inches, then stuck the pen behind her ear and repeated the exercise first with Raphael, then Michelangelo, and finally Leonardo.

"Er...Jessie?" Leonardo asked, "Why are you taking our measurements?"

"Because I know full well that you're going to want to go out sooner or later." She said, "And I _promise_ you, that if you do, you will get caught. So you're gonna need disguises."

"Like what?" Raphael asked carefully. Jessica smiled,

"Depends on what I can find." She said, "But don't worry, I'm not _completely_ fashion-blind."

"Wait, wait, wait." Said Michelangelo, "You're buying us _clothes_?"

"Do you _want_ to go as you are?" she asked,

"I'm pretty okay with it." Raphael shrugged,

"Wait till you meet Emily, I think you'll change your mind then." She said grimly.

"Who's Emily?" asked Donatello,

"She lives in the building." Jessica answered, "But trust me, you do_ not_ want to run in to her."

Judging from her expression, she meant it, and the turtles decided to take her word for it.

"My point is," she continued, "Is that you aren't just _strange aliens_ in this world, you're also fictional. So if someone sees you, you could get into a heap of trouble that is _way_ deeper that whatever happens at home." She looked at that pointedly, "You were planned, remember?"

They did, and so made no further comment. The last thing they wanted was to attract attention. Jessica eventually finished measuring them, but when they made to sit down again, she made a sharp, loud, "_AT_!" sound – similar to the one you would make when telling a dog _no_ – and the quartet resumed their positions.

"You can put your arms down if you want." She added, and they did so gratefully. Ninjas or not, their arms were getting tired. Jessica walked around them in slow circles. One hand under her chin as she examined them, making small "hmm" noises in various pitches and intonations.

"As far as I can tell, there's only one problem." She said,

"And that's _not_ the fact we're in the wrong universe?" Raphael asked sarcastically,

"Two problems then, _William_." She said, smiling when Raphael scowled, "I can get clothes for all four of you, I expect, but your feet look _way_ too big for anything other than clown shoes. _No_." she added upon seeing Michelangelo's face light up at the prospect. His face fell. Seeing his large, sad, baby blue eyes, she relented somewhat.

"But I'll get you a couple comics, okay?" she said, "I'll even get TMNT ones if you like." She grinned, and all four faces, even those of Leonardo and Donatello – who weren't particularly comic savvy – lit up.

"I hear they're really dark." Raphael grinned, remembering what he had discovered on the website Jessica had shown them.

"It'll be like reading about our ancestors!" Leonardo said excitedly,

"Who cares?" asked Michelangelo, "They're awesome comics that everyone loves, and they're about _us_!"

Jessica chuckled, "I'll be back in a few hours, okay?" she said, "Help yourselves to lunch, but clean everything up. _Including_ the mess you made at breakfast. Dirty apartment means no comics. TMNT or otherwise."

It was somewhat amusing seeing how effective that threat was, as the four of them dashed off to the kitchen, cleaning up the mess as best they could as soon as the front door was closed.

* * *

><p>When Jessica returned to her flat, laden with shopping, at about two in the afternoon, she found the four turtles on her sofa, watching TMNT 2012, enamoured.<p>

"_What are you doing_?!" she shrieked upon seeing this, making all of them jump about a foot in the air.

"What, what, what?" Asked Donatello frantically,

"Are you _insane_?!" she asked, "There are more than three seasons there! You've only lived up to partway through season 2!" She hated how fangirl that sounded, but it was, in all truth, a necessary precaution. If they knew their futures bad things could happen.

Donatello calmed at this, "Do you take me for an idiot?" he asked, "I _know_ that. I was just interested in what parts they captured of our lives. In fact, up until about twenty minutes ago, we were watching the 2003 version."

Jessica calmed at this, and smiled nostalgically. "Yeah..." she said, "That's a good one. What episode did you get up to?"

"Season two, episode eight."

Another quick calculation, "How did you get _that_ far?" she asked, "I was only gone four hours. That's twelve episodes tops."

"We may have watched the entirety of season one last night..." Leonardo shuffled his feet,

She laughed, "That's verging on impressive," she remarked, "Marathoning a season like that...that takes dedication." She smiled, "You might just be fanboys."

"What-what's?" asked Raphael,

"Fan. Boys. Boys who are fans." She explained, "I'm a fan_girl_. Of Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, TMNT, Supernatural, Doctor Who and Merlin. Among other things." She counted them off on her fingers.

The only words that made sense in that last sentence were "Of" "the" and "and". The turtles asked her what all of these things were, and she took great a pleasure in explaining each of her fandoms in detail as she dressed them. They weren't bored for a second. Raphael took to the Hunger Games, Donatello to Doctor Who, Leonardo to Merlin, and Michelangelo to Harry Potter. She briefly mentioned something called Game of Thrones, but point blank refused to let any of them watch it. She also brought up Marvel, which was apparently a comic book universe, not unlike the Turtles'.

As far as the clothes went, Donatello was the first to be dressed. He was given a white, long-sleeved shirt and a baggy purple t-shirt, with the word _GEEK_ written on it in yellowy-orange, blocky font. His jeans were normal blue ones, and he had a purple baseball cap to go with it. Michelangelo had a zip-less orange hoodie with beige camping trousers, and a yellow Spongebob t-shirt; to finish, a deep orange baseball cap, which he immediately turned back to front. Leonardo also had a hoodie, but his was light blue, and had a zip. His jeans were similar to Donatello's, only they had a few rips in the knees, and his t-shirt was a TARDIS blue Doctor Who one, with the show's season 6 logo stamped over the front in white. Lastly, he had a navy-blue baseball cap, as plain as that of his brothers, and Jessica pulled up the hood of his hoodie. Raphael had a plain, bright red t-shirt, and a dark brown jacket. His jeans were, like Leonardo's, ripped, only they were black. His baseball cap was also black, and was the only one that wasn't plain (it had 'NY' embroidered on the front in white). To finish, all of them were given a pair of thick, black, skateboarding gloves, and a skateboard of roughly the same colours as their masks.

Once she finished, Jessica stepped back to admire her handiwork. She walked around, serveying them, "I am _good_." She remarked, "Are you guys comfortable?"

"Surprisingly, yeah." Said Donatello, moving his arms around,

"Same here." Said Leonardo, Michelangelo nodded excitedly, jumping aorund in his new clothes. Donatello examinined the fabric of his t-shirt, but was smiling.

"Good." She smiled, "Because you look good, guys." She said, "And since you're all so short, the caps and hoods'll help hide your faces."

"How'd you swing these?" Raphael asked, examining his own red board.

"Friend of mine used to collect them." She shrugged, "He has tons, sells them to local kids. I figured if you're going fast enough, people won't see, and if you shake hands, all they'll feel is the glove."

"Smart." Dontello remarked, earning a smile from his human host.

"Did you get the comics?" asked Leonardo, pushing down the hood of his hoodie. In reply, Jessica reached into her bag and pulled out a few issues of the TMNT Mirage comics. The boys pounced on them.

"Awesome!" Michelangelo squealed, reading the pages intently, his four brothers looked over his shoulder, read a few pages along with him, grinning massively, then relented. They rubbed their necks painfully.

"I'll just wait 'til Mikey's done." Said Leonardo,

"You'll be waiting a long time." Said Raphael, also rubbing the back of his neck. It was common knowledge that Michelangelo was not a particularly fast reader. Not in a sense that he was stupid, but some people read faster than others. Donatello could have made it in a speed-reading competition, Leonardo was straight average, and Michelangelo and Raphael were just a little below.

Donatello turned to Jessica, "What was that thing you were describing? Sherlock? I really liked the books."

"The show's only based _loosely_ on the books, but it's really good." Jessica replied, "I've got the DVDs." she offered, and the three of them nodded excitedly. She plucked the disk off of the shelf and slotted it into her TV. As Mikey was sat in the corner drooling (not quite literally) over the Mirage comics, his three brothers sat and watched Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, enamoured,

"That's a British show, y'know." Jessica said, "As are Merlin and Doctor Who and Game of Thrones. And Harry Potter's an English book series."

"Well, Britain doesn't do much in the entertainment industry, but when they _do_, they do it well." Donatello remarked, and his eyes flew to the DVD shelf, "Why do you only have three seasons?"

"There _are_ only three seasons."

"But this has been running since...what, 2011?"

"2010."

Donatello's jaw dropped, "But there's only three episodes in each season." He exclaimed, "Do the actors keep _dying_ or something?"

"No." she replied, with a tone that suggested she was used to it, and not proud of that fact, "The show's writers just like to see the fans slowly go mad from waiting."

The four of them looked at her, concerned, and thinking _is this some sort of slang that we don't get?_ Jessica rolled her eyes, "Never mind." She said, and sat down between Raphael and Leonardo to watch with them. It was _A Scandal In Belgravia_ – one of her favourites.


	4. Chapter 4

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm so sorry I didn't upload last week, SO busy with exams. Nonetheless, here's chapter 4, R&R please :3**

**-_AppleMelody_**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4 – The Great Outdoors<strong>

* * *

><p>By the time they had finished watching Sherlock, and each of them had read the Mirage comics, the sun had set and the day was finished. After (another) dinner of pizza and (another) night of nose-strip-aided sleep, the turtles had grown properly accustomed to their new clothes. And so, the four of them decided they should go out. They explained this fact to Jessica over breakfast.<p>

Jessica laughed. It wasn't a mean laugh, which somehow made it worse.

"Hey, you can't stop us," Leonardo pointed out, "You're not our mother."

"Oh, _sure_!" Jessica replied, still laughing, "Yeah, go ahead boys, if you wanna leave and go out, just do it." she gestured to the unlocked door. But none of them made any inclination to move towards it. They _did_ want to go outside, but...they didn't know anything about it... and Jessica had said that it was as dangerous as their own world, albeit in a different way. And though that had not stopped them on their fifteenth birthdays, they realised now that that had simply been because their minds were either controlled by the pens of writers in this dimension, or the pens were controlled by their minds. Either way, the outdoors and events of this world were not planned, and that scared them.

"Could..." Donatello began, but his voice cracked off. He cleared his throat and started again, "Could you...come with us?"

Jessica's laugh stopped abruptly. She knew they wold be apprehensive, and probably would decide just to stick around on the roof or something, but she had never guessed they'd be _this_ afraid. She was oddly touched.

"Alright." She smiled gently, "Where do you want to go?"

They paused, thinking. After a moment, Michelangelo spoke up, "What food is England famous for?" he asked.

Now it was Jessica's turn to pause and think, "Chippies? I guess? Indian food?" _That's slightly ironic..._ she added in her head.

"What are 'chippies'?" asked Leonardo. Jessica's jaw literally dropped,

"Are you telling me you've _never_ had a chippy?"

"No." Donatello answered, "At the very least, we didn't know what it was when we ate it."

Jessica grabbed her handbag, "Okay, then." She said, "We're gonna do the works. London Eye. West End. London Dungeons. Camden Market and _chippies_." She grabbed her purse and her car keys, "Let's go boys, I'm taking you to London Town!"

There were quizzical looks and smiles as they followed her down to the carpark at the bottom of the building.

When Jessica clicked her keys, and her Toyota Hilux beeped the unlock tune, the four turtles ran towards it with glee, each shouting "_DRIVER_!" they wrenched open the passenger door, and battled for the driver's seat.

"No _fair_, you drive the Shellraiser!"

"Exactly, so _I'm_ the better driver!"

"I'm the most intelligent, _and_ the tallest!"

"Why can't I drive? _I wanna drive_!"

"Ahem." Came Jessica's voice, and they stopped their mini-tournament. She was stood, most of her weight on one leg, her elbow tucked onto her waist, palm facing upwards with the keyring of her car keys dangling on her index finger.

"In England, you can't drive without a license." She said flatly, "And somehow, I doubt you guys went to driving school. _Furthermore_, you're only fifteen/sixteen-ish, and you can't drive until you're _seventeen_ here. Not to mention, it's _my _car!" she said this last sentence loudly and protectively, but not crossly. She pulled them away from the driver-side door, "No one drives my baby but _me_." She said, "Don, you're in the center back, Mikey, you're behind the passenger seat, Leo, you're behind me, Raph, you've got shotgun."

There were protests from three of the turtles at this.

"How come _Raph_ gets shotgun?" Michelangelo complained,

"Because he's most likely to hit you guys, and I can't break up a fight if I'm driving." She said flatly, earning grudging _fair enough, I guess_ glances from the trio. "If anyone, for whatever reason, stops the car, pretend to be asleep, and make sure no one sees your faces."

The four turtles clambered into the car. Upon sitting himself in the passenger seat, Raphael looked around, confused.

"Is it just me," he said slowly, "Or is this car the wrong way round?" he glanced at the lack of a steering wheel, or rather, at the steering wheel that was supposedly on the "wrong" side.

"In the UK, you drive on the left." Jessica explained, sliding into the driver seat and turning on the engine, "Seatbelts on." She called to the back, clipping on her own. Raphael clipped on his belt and, looking around the car, discovered the glove compartment. Curious, he opened it, and discovered a bunch of CD's – of course, he'd never heard of any of the artists. When he was examining one disc, Jessica snatched it from his hand and stuffed it in the glove compartment, before taking another and shoving it into the player.

"Hey!" Raphael said indignantly, "That one looked good!"

"House rules, Sammy." Jessica replied, "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"My name's not Sammy." Raphael pointed out, but Jessica seemed to have not heard as she reversed out of her space and slid into the hazy light of London. The turtles glued themselves to the windows.

Donatello was probably at a disadvantage, as he was not close to a window, unlike his brothers. He did his best to see out of the front between Raphael and Jessica's heads, and all four of the car's male occupants were dumbstruck with awe.

Jessica looked at them in her rear-view mirror with amusement, "You know this is a pretty standard day, right?" she asked, "I mean, the weather isn't even that special." True, it wasn't raining, but the sky seemed to be threatening to, as the entirety of it was a dull, uniform grey.

"It's _incredible_..." Breathed Donatello, "The...the _detail..._"

"Oh yeah, I forgot that your world is animated." Jessica mused, "You should see something _really_ amazing. Like real New York, or Paris, or the Northern Lights."

"But none of those are in London." Leonardo said,

"I know." Jessica sighed, "But you can't blame a girl for dreaming."

It was still early when they had left that day, for Jessica had been up at a surprising seven am – surprising because it was Sunday. As a result, they had been out on London town by twelve. They stopped for lunch (chippies, of course), then went on the London Eye. Whilst Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello stared out of the window for the full hour, it was then revealed that Michelangelo (at least where water was concerned) was deathly afraid of heights. Once again, a difference between the dimension in which they were controlled. Jessica mused this as she rubbed Mikey's shoulder comfortingly, and he snuggled into her side like a young child. In this dimension, they seemed to have minds of their own – _real_ minds of their own, not ones that were controlled and dictated by Nickelodeon. True, for the most part they were the same, but there were small and subtle differences.

After the London Eye, Jessica was not sure whether the boys would want to try the dungeons.

"Aw, come on!" they pleaded, "We're not scared of the dark, or monsters, or anything like that!"

"Have you_ seen_ the mutants we deal with?" added Leonardo from underneath his blue cap. Jessica chuckled and sighed, defeated.

"Alright." She caved, "But if you're scared, it's your own fault." She threw a dangerous look at Raphael, "No scaring Mikey, not just after the Eye."

"Yes ma'am." He saluted, but he really meant it. Scaring Mikey _was_ kinda fun, but it was unfair if he was _already_ nervous. As a result, she decided they would do something else first, and give Michelangelo a chance to calm down. She had allowed each of them to pick a destination. Leonardo had chosen the Eye, and Raphael had chosen the Dungeons. Now it was Donatello's. He wasn't particularly interested in Camden Market, and instead, Jessica took them to the Royal Science Museum. All of them, including Raphael and Michelangelo, adored it. Jessica had fun too.

They loved the dungeons too. Every second. So much so that they asked to go again the next day. Jessica laughed, refused, but then added, "maybe another day, but I only make so much." But she permitted them to check out _one last attraction_. Michelangelo's choice. And he chose (_bless_, thought Jessica) to go back to Jessie's apartment and do something she would do with friends.

Smiling at his sweetness, she thought about what they would entail. The drive home was slumber-y and content, but as Jessica drove, she thought of what they could all do. Watching a film seemed nice, but they'd done that loads of times already. It was Saturday, so that usually meant a quiet night in. That was nice, but not right...then she thought about how, Friday night, she had been unable to see her human friends because of her newest guests. Usually, her and a few mates met up in a local pub _The Red Lion_, and had a few drinks, maybe dinner.

_Yes...that'd be good..._ she thought, _but not in public, that wouldn't work so well..._ she thought over her options for a moment, _maybe the roof..._

As they reached her apartment once more, Michelangelo asked, "So, what're we gonna do?"

To which Jessica cheerily replied, "How about beers on the roof?" grinning. She was met by confused, intrigued looks. Their eyes were wide with awe. _At the prospect of drinking beer? _She thought, _Wow._

"Beer?" Donatello asked, "As in...alcohol?"

Jessica looked at him, confused, "Well, _yeah_. What did you think I meant?"

"Mmno." He mumbled, shrugging.

"Geez, you're acting like you've never had it before." She remarked,

"We haven't." Leonardo deadpanned,

"Oh, come on!" she grinned, "You're sixteen and you're telling me you've _never_ had alcohol?" True, they had never had it on the show, but it _was_ a show for kids. Ipso facto, there was censoring. But there was plenty that happened off screen, so what's to say they hadn't tried it once?

"Yes." Leonardo replied,

"I'm not talking _drunk_, I'm talking like, _one_ beer."

"Not one." He confirmed,

"Weird." Jessica muttered, "But tonight: that changes, boys." She said with a grin, "Weather forecast say's it'll be a clear night, and it's a full moon. So put on your baseball caps and grab the picnic blankets in the utility room. I'll meet you on the roof with the cooler."

* * *

><p>They laid out the picnic blankets on the stone, and lay down, looking up at the sunset. For October, it was surprisingly warm and still quite light, so it was very peasant. Because it was Saturday, most people were in clubs with friends or out on the town, and so the roof was quiet. The gentle thrum of traffic and voices wafted up from the streets below; it was an urban paradise. Just in case someone decided to come up, the four turtles kept their baseball caps on, but pushed them back so they could see the sky above them.<p>

At Jessica's insistence, they had let her carry the cooler up alone. It wasn't overly heavy, and she didn't trust them with something like this, so Jessica had ordered them to go ahead with the blankets.

After setting down the cooler, she pulled out five beer bottles; the necks of three were entwined in the fingers of her left hand, the necks of the other two in her right. She passed two to Donatello, who then handed one to Michelangelo, and two to Raphael, who then handed one to Leonardo. She twisted the cap of her own bottle sharply, and took a swig, nearly choking as she saw the turtles examining their own bottles with rather amusing expressions on their faces.

Leonardo and Raphael were trying to imitate her sharp jerk of the cap, but a move like that took years to perfect, and so they had just caused small cuts on their palms – beginners' luck did not exist with alcohol. Michelangelo was just shaking his bottle up and down in an effort to dislodge the cap, and Donatello had taken to using his teeth to try and pull the cap off. Neither method was working, so Jessica tossed them a bottle-opener.

"You do this often?" Leonardo asked her, after popping open his own beer. He took as swig as Jessica answered, and grimaced.

"Do what?" was her reply, "Drink beer or come up to the roof?"

"Either." He shrugged, taking another swig and grimacing again, but less so.

"Well...being in my early twenties I can drink legally, and I have a few every other Friday with friends. As for coming up to the roof...well, that's how I met you guys, isn't it? I come up here whenever I need peace and quiet. And you've gotta admit, the view's pretty cool." She gestured with her beer bottle towards the black-silhouette of the London skyline, set against by an orange-pink-purple twilight peppered with diamond stars, and a silver coin for a moon.

Michelangelo, after examining his own beer, including sniffing it, took a large gulp and retched. After coughing and choking (in a dramatic sense; his breathing was fine) he spoke."_EW_!" he cried, "That's gross! How can you _drink_ that?!"

Jessica chuckled, "Coming from the guy who grew up in a sewer" she muttered to herself, then continued louder, "I figured you might not like it much." She said, "There are a couple Coke cans in the cooler too." She jerked her head sharply to the blue ice-box. Michelangelo rummaged around before producing a red can triumphantly. He popped the seal and continued happily.

"I didn't like it much when I was younger either." Jessica told them, "Even now, beer's only _okay_. I prefer cider and whiskey."

"What're they like?" asked Donatello. Jessica paused,

"Well, cider is fizzy, alcoholic apple juice." She said, "And whiskey...well, it's whiskey." She shrugged, "But it's also a little strong for you guys I'd reckon. The last thing we need when you get back is you guys to be hungover."

Conversation continued on merrily. The five of them lay down on their backs, looking up at the stars and just generally chatting. It was faintly warm – which was strange for October – and the sky was clear; dotted with diamond stars which, according to Jessica, made pictures. None of the turtles could see these pictures, though.

After a few hours, conversation grew more serious. The five began to talk about themselves more than their worlds, and Jessica was begged with to spill and to not spill secrets from each of them. Such as Leonardo's fanfiction writing (though he hadn't know it was _fanfiction_ until recently) and his secret cooking lessons, so that he might bake a _real_ cake for his brothers' next birthday. Raphael's surprising prowess at drawing, and his strange ticklishness (which Jessica accidentally discovered when prodding him in the side to make him move over on the sofa). Michelangelo's secret desire for a mother figure and his peculiar interest in My Little Pony (which he discovered by playing the DVDs he found in Amanda's room. His favourite was – rather unsurprisingly – the blonde, _**orange**_ one). Donatello's dear wish to be Tony Stark and his secret love of ridiculously corny daytime TV. Jessica's crush on one of the building's tenants (but she wouldn't say which) and, _apparently_ her skill at martial arts, which each of the turtles made a mental note to test.

Eventually, however, the activities of the day took their toll on the group, and they grew tired. Michelangelo was the first to fall asleep, but he was closely followed by Donatello, and then, Leonardo. By eleven 'o'clock, it was only Raphael and Jessica who were still awake, lying on their backs, gazing at the stars.

Jessica was just about to doze off herself when a sound besides the normal thrum of traffic pulled her from the soft-violet curtain of sleep.

"Hey, Jessie?" It was Raphael's voice.

"Mmm?" she asked, her eyes closed and her hands behind her head.

"Why are you doing this?"

She opened her eyes and turned her head to face him. She was lying down on the blankets, but Raphael was sitting up and staring at the stars. He had discarded the baseball cap, but was still wearing his other clothes. "Doing what?" she asked,

"_This_." He said, gesturing around himself, "Taking us around London, buying us clothes, showing us the sky..." he trailed off in awe as he once more caught sight of the mesmerising stars and the silver-penny moon. Jessica sat up.

"Are you saying you'd rather I wouldn't?" her tone was dry and not at all sincere, but that didn't stop Raphael's protests from being real. She chuckled at his attempts to apologise, "I do it because I want to." She said, "You guys are never going to see this world again, and it's my honour to introduce you to the few wonders of it." she paused, pulling out a Coke can and popping the seal. She took a large, gulp, shook her head a little to wake up, and continued, "It's not much, I mean, we don't have aliens or super-villains, but we have a pretty cool night sky." Raphael smiled,

"Thanks." He said softly,

"You're welcome, Raphael." She replied, his name sounding strange on her British tongue. They lulled into a calm silence, which Raphael then broke with another question.

"What did Nathan mean?" he asked,

Jessica chuckled softly, "You'll have to narrow it down there, dude." She replied,

"By '_that's as dangerous as they get_'," Raphael answered, "You looked really disturbed, and then you went on about our world being pretty easy compared to this one..." he trailed off,

Jessica sighed, "You really wanna know?" she asked,

"Yeah." He said softly,

"Because it's not a bedtime story, on any level, and I don't want it being spread around." Her gaze was intense, and more serious than he had ever seen it, "If I tell you, you tell _no one_, not even your brothers, because it won't be your secret to share. Okay?"

Raphael nodded, "Okay." He told her, his tone as serious and as sincere as he could manage.

Jessica took a deep breath. Her free hand came to her face and slowly dragged itself down. Once it was back in her lap, she spoke, "I was seventeen." She said, "I was young, naïve, and there was this guy I liked. His name was Tyler. He was seventeen too." She paused for a moment, taking another swig from her Coke, "I thought he was amazing, like everyone does when they have a crush. He was cute, he was smart, he was tough but not brutal, had emotions but wasn't over sensitive." Another swig, "And I liked him. I _really_ liked him."

She sighed, and paused for a long time. It was so long a pause, that, for a moment, Raphael thought that was it; that he'd been told the answer, but he didn't get it because he wasn't from this world. Then Jessica seemed to steel herself and continue quietly.

"It was a friend's party. An eighteenth birthday party, and Tyler approached me." Another swig, "I should have walked away as soon as I saw he was drunk, but you know how you feel like...like you'll do _anything_ to impress them?" Having never had a crush, Raphael couldn't say that he did, but from watching Donnie and Leo, he reckoned he had a fairly accurate idea, so he nodded.

"Well, I felt like that," Jessica continued, "And we got talking, and then he suggested we go someplace else. So I followed him, and next thing I know we're making out in some dingy alleyway, and my mind is in overdrive because he's kissing me and he's _good_ at it and-" she broke off suddenly and sheepishly, "Sorry," she muttered, running a hand through her hair. Raphael shook his head,

"No, it's fine." He said,

"Okay." She took a deep breath, "And suddenly...he's got his hand up my shirt, and I don't like it. So, I'm pushing at him," she pushed her hands (one still holding the can) out slightly, accenting her point, "And he's not quitting. So I really _shove_ him, and he falls back. And he looks at me like I've just pulled out a knife and tried to stab him. Which...which is actually really ironic..."

Raphael turned to her very suddenly, alarmed. But Jessica didn't seem to notice as she continued.

"He pins me up against the wall, and I'm too scared to make a break for it in case he cuts me. And he says that...that if I don't want him...then he'll make sure no one ever wants _me_ again." She took a large swig of Coke before continuing, "And he makes to...I don't know, cut my face, maybe? But then this...guy...he just..._wrenched_ Tyler back and away from me...suddenly I was free to move...so I ran."

There was a long pause.

"Is that it?" Raphael asked. Jessica moved her head from side to side in a '_sort of_' motion. Then she pulled down the collar of her shirt. Pale, near invisible against her skin, was a thin white line running from her shoulder, along her collarbone, and towards the hollow of her neck. It stopped abruptly about halfway along, but not before nicking downwards sharply, which seemed to be where Tyler had been pulled away from her.

"The guy didn't quite get there in time." She numbly, "So all I could think of was running. I called the police, and Tyler got arrested for assault a few days later..." she took another gulp of Coke, and they fell into a small, but not awkward, silence. "I never did find out who the other guy was." She added after a moment, "I never even thanked him..." There was another long pause.

"So that's what you meant by how easy we have it." Raphael said,

"Bingo." But there was no joy in her tone. "In your world, because it's all designed, there are no assaults or sexual offences, because it's a world for a kids' show. In _this_ world...well, you only have to look online." She paused, "Even though we don't have aliens or killer robots, it's a lot more violent than yours."

"And I suppose that explains your...hostility." Raphael added after another long pause.

Jessica turned to him, "What?"

He matched her confused expression, "The bat? Smashing a mug on Mikey's head?" he suggested, "I don't know much about this dimension, but I really doubt that's normal."

She chuckled, "No, it's not." She confirmed, "But compared to you guys, I'm straight out average." She drained her Coke and lay back down to go to sleep. Raphael followed suit. A silence ensued, but Jessica could tell that there was a question on the tip of Raphael's tongue. She turned on her head to face him, eyebrow raised.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly. She could see it had been a question plaguing him for a while.

Raphael struggled for the right words, "When our..._show_ ends...what happens?"

Jessica was quiet, "You know I can't tell you that." She said, "It'll mess with your future."

"No, no." Raphael said, "Not like that. I mean..." he paused, "Are we still a family?"

She gave a small chuckle, "Of course you are." She replied, "Why would you think you weren't?"

From the tone of Raphael's silence, Jessica could make a good guess. Anyone who ever watched TMNT could immediately pick out Raphael's temper, and his intense protection and love for his brothers. It took a more avid watcher, perhaps, to notice his inner conflicts and issues.

"You have to give yourself a little credit." She said quietly, "And you need to stop being so scared."

"Scared?" He asked, "I'm not scared." He answered himself defensively. Of course, it was a lie that anyone could see through. He sighed, and caved at Jessica's skeptical look, "Okay, fine. I'm scared."

"Of...?" she prompted. She knew that a problem shared was a problem halved, and that the first step to dealing with a problem is to voice it.

"Of? _Of_?" He was not talking loudly, but his tone wouldn't have been any different if he had, "I'm scared of bugs, I'm scared I'm gonna hurt my brothers, I'm scared I'm as tall as I'm gonna get, I'm scared I'll get abandoned by my family, or that I'll be forced to leave them, I'm scared of my temper – I _hate_ my temper, I hate bugs, I hate my eyes, I hate _myself_-" he choked off suddenly, and his eyes burned with tears. He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, willing them back. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes sockets, and was so focused on not crying that he barely noticed Jessica putting a comforting arm around him.

"Your eyes?" she said mildly, trying to start on an easier topic.

"They're green." He said bluntly. And they were. A bright, lime green that most people would adore. "But Mikey's and Leo's are blue. Splinter's and Donnie's are brown. Mine are just green."

"Oh." Jessica replied, _that went well_. She thought sarcastically. There was another pause,

"You shouldn't hate yourself." She said eventually, "Everyone has issues to deal with. Look at your brothers."

Raphael glanced at the sleeping forms behind him, and shook his head. Jessica gave him a look.

"They do." She pressed, "Michelangelo has ADD."

"ADD?"

"Attention Deficit Disorder." She replied, "He has trouble concentrating and is very hyperactive. He's not just silly, it's a genuine condition."

Raphael was silent, now he just felt bad about getting cross with Mikey when he was being annoying.

"Leo has to deal with the stress of being leader – I mean, you know what that's like, you tried it." Raphael just nodded at this, he _did_ know what it was like.

"And Donatello has to deal with April. He has to deal with the fact that he won't fit into human society. Your brothers' issues may not seem as bad to _you_. But to them, they are."

Raphael nodded again, but then added, "So? Their issues won't hurt anybody. I have _real_ anger issues. A _real_ temper, and one day I'm scared I'm gonna do something to hurt my brothers."

Jessica hugged him tighter as she spoke, "I shouldn't really say this..." she said, "But I think you deserve to know." Raphael looked up at her, green eyes terrified,

"You don't hurt them." She said simply, and she felt him relax against her side. "But honestly, I'm not surprised." Now his gaze turned quizzical, "However bad your temper, however angry you get, you know their limits. You know how hard you could hit before you cause pain. Your love for them – don't look at me like that, you _know_ its love – your love for them was, _**is**_, always stronger than your anger."

Raphael allowed himself to lean into her side a little. He didn't _like_ Jessie – not in the way Leo liked Karai, or the way Donnie liked April – but he liked her.

"Sorry." He said eventually,

"About what?" came the reply,

"About..._unloading_ on you." He said sheepishly, "I usually keep this stuff to myself, and-"

"Preaching to the choir." Jessica said dismissively, and though Raphael was unfamiliar with the literal phrase, he knew what it meant. "I keep myself to myself most of the time too," she continued, "But take it from me, you can end up with _serious_ issues if you don't talk. If not to your family, to a friend." She smiled sideways, "Or you could whip up a portal and come visit me." She smiled.

Of course, they both knew that was out of the question. They didn't come from different universes, but different _realities._ In Raphael's reality, there were several TMNT universes. In Jessie's, several alien ones – of course, the human race didn't know what yet. But the thought still gave them comfort. They lulled into a slow silence, and then Raphael said one word. One word he rarely said, and rarely meant as much as he did now.

"Thanks." Jessica had not done a lot, merely listened and tried to reason with him, but she had _done_ a great deal. More than he could ever say.

"You're welcome." She replied lazily. She took her arm from around him and lay down on her blanket. Raphael soon did the same, and they both looked up at the stars, with considerably lighter hearts.

"Night, Jessie." Raphael said, as his eyes closed.

"Goodnight, Raphael." She said softly in reply.

Within seconds, the two of them were asleep.

* * *

><p>At some point in the night, each of the turtles stirred. Not enough to wake, but enough to move in their sleep. When they were not at home in the sewers, they habitually slept in a large pile; all legs and arms. Yet, all of them were always comfortable. But this time, they had fallen asleep separately. So they subconsciously moved in their sleep so that they might be closer.<p>

By the time they had all stopped moving, they were lying in such a way that Jessie was a part of the pile too.


	5. Chapter 5

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**Well happy birthday to me! I celebrated my birthday earlier this week, which is why it gives me extra pleasure to be uploading this chapter - it's a personal favourite of mine. But, alas, I am to be the bearer of bad news for now. This will be my last post until after New Years'. I need some time to relax, work on some other fics (I have an as-of-yet-unused AO3 account) and write some more of this, so I'm afraid this will have to sate your literary appetites for now. However, the chapters I have planned - in particular, the next two, will be well worth the wait, I swear.  
><strong>

**Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and that you enjoy the holiday period - plus, in all reality, you'll probably have better things to do over Christmas than read iffy fanfiction. But Merry Christmas anyways!  
><strong>

****–**_AppleMelody_**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5 – Behold, Fanfiction<strong>

* * *

><p>A few days passed after that. For the most part, the turtles stayed in Jessica's apartment whilst she went to work, and ordered pizza when she got back. They had very little to do; according to Donatello, until their energy signatures (since they were from another universe, the energy they gave off was unique to this reality) swung another portal their way, they just had to try and stay in the same place as much as possible, so their energy signatures got concentrated enough more quickly. Donatello was the only one who really understood, but the others didn't mind, so long as they got home. However, on the Friday, over a week since their arrival, it became apparent that even <em>with<em> the trip to London's tourist area, they were getting _serious_ cabin fever; Raphael in particular.

After several consecutive days with no weapons, and no martial arts practice, he was going _insane_. He couldn't even properly spar with his brothers, because Jessica had forbidden them to fight in her living room. They would only attract attention and break things, apparently. She _had_, however, allowed them to scout around at night, provided they kept a _very_ low profile, and wore their disguises.

Michelangelo was content on figuring out how Jessica's coffee machine worked. Splinter didn't drink coffee, and neither did the turtles. That didn't make a dent in Michelangelo's efforts to work it. Unfortunately, after a few days of trying, he succeeded in getting it to make a coffee. Even more unfortunately, it was a double espresso.

Thirty seconds later, he was bouncing around the flat like a mad thing.

"**_BOYS_**!" Jessica's dangerously angry yell (somewhat reminiscent of a mother's) cut through the air as she entered the kitchen to find Michelangelo. He was almost _vibrating_ with the amount of caffeine in his system.

"You know water balloons are really cool pieces of work I mean you just have to throw and them WHAM the person next to you is soaking wet and they're especially good pranks in the summer for someone who's hot and bothered like Raph pretty much all the time and I wonder if you could make a self-launching water balloon hey Donnie do you reckon you could make a- MFFHMF!" he was cut off by Raphael slapping a hand over his mouth, but he continued bouncing.

"What the _fuck_," Jessica began, ignoring the flinches from them as she swore, "Did you do to Mikey?"

"Why do you care?" it was out of Raphael's mouth before he could stop it. _Shell shell shell shell sh-_

Jessica fixed him with a dangerous look, "Why do I care?" she asked, "_WHY DO I __**CARE**__?!_ Just _look_ at the place!" she gestured to the trashed kitchen. There was orange juice, milk and eggs all over the place, "YOU GAVE THE MOST HYPER CREAUTRE IN THIS APARMENT A DOUBLE ESPRESSO, WHAT WERE YOU _THINKING_?!" she screamed at them. Michelangelo was still babbling around. Now the caffeine was really in his system, and he was starting to act a bit irrationally, rather than just intensely hyper – he wasn't used to caffeine, to say the least. The four of them, (even the overly-hype Michelangelo) took a step back in fear.

Jessica then took a deep breath, "Okay," she said, "I'm calm, I'm calm." She took another deep breath and mouthed the words _one...two...three_.

"Right." She said, "You guys are going to clean up this mess." She said, and it was met with several protests,

"Aw, _what_?"

"But Mikey made the mess!"

"How is it _my_ fault? He got the machine working on his own, I swear!"

"...self-launching water balloons would be really helpful for like long distance or delayed oooh delayed self-launching water balloons..."

"My second rule was that you leave everything as you find it." she said, "You did _not_ find the kitchen this way, so grab and a mop and _suck it up_." She handed Leonardo a mop in a somewhat self-satisfied way.

* * *

><p>An hour and a half later, the kitchen was finally clean and the whole escapade had only added to Raphael's desire for some air. When no one was looking, he snuck out and made his way to the roof. Normally, it would have been okay to do that, if this was the middle of the night.<p>

But right now was the middle of the day, he wasn't wearing his human clothes, and he was sulking on the roof in plain sight. Ever since he and his brothers had broken Jessie's _no weapons_ rule, she had started locking the door to her coat cupboard.

As a result, he had spent the past hour or so practising his kicks and punches in mid-air, occasionally taking it out on the wall. He never noticed the pretty blonde girl making her way up to the roof. Another one of the building's tenants, Emily Smith. She knew Jessica, and Emily had sort of forced her friendship upon the girl. Whilst Jessica aimed to be a doctor, Emily was a trainee nurse, but they both loved TMNT. Emily, however, was one of the fans that liked to ship herself with the turtles. Particularly Raphael.

Unfortunately.

She made a small squeak of surprise upon seeing Raphael. But, like Jessica, she first assumed he was a cos-player.

"Hey," she said, smiling, and Raphael turned sharply. _Oh shell...oh __**shell**__..._ he thought, _no, no, no, __**no**__!_ He knew he was well and truly busted, how would he pass this off?

Then he remembered what Jessica had done with her brother.

"Er...hey." he replied nervously, raising a hand and smiling, "I'm..." he sighed, _God I hate that name..._ "I'm William."

"William, huh?" she said, grey eyes shining mischievously, "I thought you were Raphael." She was now a little too close for comfort and, for a moment, he was paralysed with fear. How did she know who he was? But then he remembered, _he was a fictional character in this world_. He smiled in a relaxed manner,

"You like the show, too, huh?" he asked,

"Not as much as I like your costume," she replied, almost flirtily. Now he grew nervous again. True, his generation of TMNT was attracted to humans (he only knew this from hours surfing Turtlepedia, but he had almost constantly wished since then that he was of a different generation – like the 2003 generation, they seemed cool) but he didn't like this girl, at _all_. She made him feel nervous and uncomfortable...something about her felt very off.

"Heh heh..." he smiled incredibly nervously, "You like Raph, huh?"

Emily's smile grew, "He's my _favourite_." She told him, "He's so tough, and badass, and my _God_, he is _so_ cute! And his _voice_? Oh!" she raised a hand to her head as if she were going to dramatically faint. Raphael was now incredibly weirded out. She was a _human_, and Jessica had told him and his brothers how humans would not be attracted to them, which is why most generations abandoned the concept of romantic interests. _I wish I was part of __**those**__ generations..._ he thought for possibly the millionth time.

Emily turned to him, "I'm guessing Raphael is _your_ favourite too?" she asked,

"I...I guess you could say that..." he replied,

"He's _hot_, huh?"

He blanched, now this was _seriously_ weird. What was this girl thinking?

"I guess..." he said uncertainly, "You...you like him?"

"I _adore_ him!" she squealed, "I've done fanart, even a bit of fanfiction, I just _love_ him!"

"Heh heh..." he grinned nervously, "He's cool, I guess. But not as level headed as Leo...or as smart and Donnie...or as nice as Mikey..." He trailed off glumly, he was by far and away the most expendable of the team.

"So what?" She asked, waving a hand dismissively, "He's _gorgeous_!" she paused and looked at him steadily, and Raphael quelled the urge to look at her incredulously. He knew full well that his brothers were not attractive – certainly not in _their_ universe. "You know..." she said, in a musing tone, "You are _really_ cute in that thing..." she smiled a sultry smile at Raphael.

Emily raised a hand and placed it on his plastron, delicately tracing the lightning-bolt-shaped-gap with her finger. It tickled. A lot. And Raphael resisted the urge to giggle, because it would not help in this circumstance. He couldn't even remember how he had gotten the chip.

It had been like that before he was mutated. Though he didn't remember it, he had gotten the chip whilst fighting a particularly vicious turtle, who had seemed dead set on eating the as-of-then un-mutated Michelangelo. Even then, Raphael had been the fierce, protective one. The vicious turtle had not been mutated, left in the shop when Raphael and his three brothers were bought by Hamato Yoshi, and eventually had been abandoned, to be found in the sewer, several years later by the then-mutated Raphael.

In short, his chip was his very first battle scar. He got it when protecting his brothers. Protecting his brothers from Spike/Slash no less.

He grinned back at Emily nervously, he _really_ didn't like the vibe she was giving him.

"Er...do...do you hear that?" he asked her, putting a hand to his ear – or at least, where his ear would have been if he had had external ears. Emily shook her head dazedly.

But this did not deter Raphael from escaping. "COMING!" he yelled, "COMING...er...DANNY!" he cried, remembering the alias that Jessica had assigned Donatello. He left Emily looking rather confused and annoyed as he dashed off at the non-existent request for his company.

_What the shell is __**up**__ with some of these people?_ Raphael asked himself, as he scrambled down the fire escape into Jessie's apartment. He looked around wildly for Jessica. He eventually found her, she was watching _Friends_ on TV with his three brothers. They were no longer confused as far as plotlines went, and were fully engaged.

Before he could even open his mouth, and without even turning away from the screen, Jessica said, "So you met Emily." She said,

"H...how?" he spluttered. Jessica didn't tell him it was because of his horrified expression.

"Why do you think I asked you to stay inside? Why do you think I gave you disguises?" she countered, "Emily's not even the worst that's out there."

Raphael gulped.

"Do you want something to calm down?" she offered, somewhat dryly.

"I'd prefer a Kraang blaster." He muttered, then, realising he was talking about her friend, backtracked, "Er...no offence."

"None taken." Jessica replied, "In all truth she isn't really a friend. She just convinced that we are because I work with her, and we happen to live in the same building." She pulled a face. "And before you ask," she continued, "No, I am not attracted to any of you."

This brought a mixture and relief and disappointment from all four of them. The precise ratios differed from turtle to turtle.

"She said she did...er..._fanart_?" Raphael added, _I think that's what she called it, anyway. _"What's that?"

"You don't wanna know." Jessica replied flatly,

"I think I do." He told her,

"I disagree." She maintained her ground, "But," she continued, "If you're sure, type _TMNT Raphael fanart _into Google." She wrote down the words on a Post-It note.

Raphael took her laptop and typed it into the search engine. He clicked on the first link, and was met with an onslaught of suggestive and slightly provocative pictures of himself – often with Leonardo, or a female human whom he had never met. The images ranged as far as generations went, but most were done in such a way that they were clearly of the 2012 version. Unfortunately.

He blanched.

"Told you..." Jessica murmured, rather amused by his reaction,

"They do know that...that's incest, right?" he asked faintly, he grimaced at a highly suggestive picture of him stood behind Leonardo, his hands around his brother's waist, and his teeth clamped firmly on the tails of the blue mask. Their expressions were...interesting.

"They do. But they don't seem to care." Jessica said, "A common excuse is that you're not _technically_ brothers, you were just raised like that. But no one really knows if that's the case or not."

"I don't care..." he said, "That's...that's..." he broke off, not able to think of the right word, and shuddered.

"Is...is all media concerning us like that?" asked Leonardo, who had looked over Raphael's shoulder and blanched.

"No." Jessica replied, "But let's just say that it isn't too hard to find this sort of thing." She gestured to her computer,

"Whilst I'm intrigued by what this world thinks of us, I'd rather _not_ see any more of..._this_." Donatello said,

"I can show you some of the decent stuff of you like." Jessica offered,

"I don't care, just get it off of that page." Raphael exclaimed. His large fingers, crossed with nervousness, had left him unable to operate the keyboard properly. Bottom line, he had frozen the screen.

Jessica rolled her eyes and took the laptop from him, unfreezing it with two clicks.

"Okay, so you wanna stay clear of DeviantART." She said, pushing Raphael out of the chair and sitting down herself, "But some of the fan stories are okay." As she typed in a new web address, Leonardo and Michelangelo joined her. She turned and smiled at the four of them, "Boys..." she smiled wickedly, "Welcome to the world of fanfiction-dot-net"

"What's that?" asked Donatello, fascinated,

"Consider it a website where amateur authors write stories about already existing characters." She clicked on 'cartoons' and then 'Ninja Turtles', "See? Even you guys are on it."

Michelangelo leaned forward to click on the first story, but Jessica slapped his hand, "Word to the wise, gentlemen," she said, "Do not – I repeat do **_NOT_** – click on _any_ fanfiction about yourselves without doing _this_." She showed them the 'filters' option,

"Do not read the 'M' rated ones." She told them, "Or the romance ones. One of you guys normally ends up snogging a human girl...or each other." She paused, taking a moment to both let this sink in, and smile at their disgust (though she didn't like the idea, their expressions were _priceless_). "For peace of mind I would also filter out 'OC' in the characters section." She showed them how to do this, warning them of the difference between the '_with_' filters and the '_without_' filters.

"'OC'?" asked Leonardo,

"Stands for 'original character' – basically a representation of the author in the story – and more often than not, a love interest for one of you guys."

"So...what did you say again?" asked Donatello, "About the filters?"

"No M, no romance, no OC." She told them, counting them off on her fingers, "And I would stay out of Google images too." She added, and looked at Raphael, "It includes pictures from R34 sites."

"R34...?" Raphael began to say,

"Don't ask." Jessica said bluntly, glancing at her watch. She stood up and headed to her room, "I've got to head out for my afternoon shift." She announced, "You know the drill. No phone, no door, no pizza." She called,

"We know." They chorused, not taking their eyes off of the computer screen. Donatello, his large hands unused to the keypad on Jessica's laptop, closed the page accidentally. However, he soon figured out how to use it, and reloaded the page.

"Ooh..." said Michelangelo, "Try _that_ one!" he pointed to one that clearly had his name listed as one of the characters. Unfortunately, he failed to notice the "-x-Raphael" in the description...

* * *

><p>Jessica returned from the hospital a few hours later to find all four turtles curled up in balls in separate corners of the living room. They looked terrified out of their shells, and very ill.<p>

"Er...guys?" asked Jessica, "What happened?"

"Fanfiction is bad..." muttered Michelangelo, "Very _very_ bad." He was rocking back and forth, his legs pulled to his chest in a foetal position.

"I just want to see Splinter one more time..." said Leonardo faintly, he was lying on his side, expression haunted, "...and...just tell him that I love him..."

"That's what got you **_in_** some of those situations with him." Raphael told him, but he looked as haunted and as shell-shocked (no pun intended) as the others. "And with me..." he shuddered.

Donatello said nothing, his eyes were wide and haunted, and he looked as though someone had tried to give him a prostate exam without his permission.

"You know I love you guys..." said Leonardo, "But...not like...not like _that_."

"Oh no..." Jessica put a hand to her forehead, "You read the 'M' ones _didn't _you?" she sighed, "**_What_** did I tell you about the filter?" she paused, and turned to Raphael, "Did you learn _anything_ from Google images?"

"M...M is for murder..." said Raphael faintly, "As in the murder of our innocence."

"Not that this is the best time..." said Jessica, "But weren't you already kinda...un-innocent?" She grimaced, _is that even a word?_ She wondered, "I mean," she continued, "You _are _ninjas. Not to mention, you've seen the original Mirage comics."

"I don't want to see any media concerning us ever again." Said Donatello, the first words he had so far spoken.

"Re-_lax_, Donnie." Jessica replied, "You just want to steer clear of fan media." She paused, "Please tell me you didn't look in Google images again."

"So...many...**_pictures_**..." Raphael mumbled,

"I'll take that as a yes." She said flatly, "What did I _tell_ you?"

"_So many pictures..._Have you seen them?" he inquired, eyes haunted,

"I might have searched media evolution once or twice." Jessica told him, shrugging,

"Dare I ask what that is?" asked Leonardo wearily,

Jessica rolled her eyes, "It means I looked at timelines regarding how your designs have changed since the original comics. Nothing..._distasteful_." she patted him gently on the shoulder, "Now," she said, "Show me what you read."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather never go near your laptop again..." said Michelangelo, eyeing it with fear. Jessica crossed the room to him and took his hand. One by one, she coaxed the turtles out of their foetal positions. She sat them down on her sofa, each with a blanket and a mug of hot chocolate. For a moment, it was as if she had four young children.

"Now." Said Jessica, once they were somewhat recovered, "What did you do?"

"The page crashed." Said Donatello, "So we reloaded it..."

"...and we forgot the filters." Said Raphael.

"Oh, you poor things..." said Jessica, sitting down in between the four of them. They leant into her embrace, as if she were their mother. "We need to get you home. To Splinter and April and Casey."

"And Karai." Added Michelangelo, somewhat slyly. Leonardo leant over and thwacked him on the head,

"No." he said bluntly, "I don't care what that...that...you can't even call it _literature_!" he exclaimed, "Bottom line, I do _not_ like her."

"It doesn't matter." Jessica said tiredly, "The fans don't care what you may think, even what's canon, if they don't agree with it. Canon means it actually happened in the storyline." She added, upon seeing confused glances, "Try to separate yourselves from the fan media. None of those feelings are real, and you didn't actually **_do_** any of that stuff, so no harm, no foul."

"No _physical_ harm, maybe." Raphael muttered darkly.

* * *

><p>For the rest of that day, night, and much of the following Saturday, the four of them were sat on Jessica's sofas, slowly ploughing through her rather extensive collection of Disney films in chronological order – it was not unlike a fanfiction detox. However, she didn't care for the very old princess ones, and so they found themselves in what Jessica deemed "Disney's Golden Age" in no time, watching films such as <em>Tarzan<em>, _Atlantis_ and _Aladdin_.

At about six'o'clock, Jessica came through into the living room. She had changed out of her standard jeans-and-t-shirt combo, and was wearing an off-the-shoulder, green t-shirt over a white tank-top, stonewashed denim shorts, nude-coloured tights and suede, wedge-heel boots. Her hair was swept up into a high ponytail and Jessica had either dyed a streak bright green or put an artificial streak in. Her earrings were large and dangly, and there was no counting the numerous silver bracelets and necklaces she was wearing. She had a black coat and her handbag on one arm.

"What do you think, boys?" she asked, spinning and asking for their opinion.

"You look nice." Leonardo smiled, "But why are you so dressed up?"

"It's Sammy's Hen-Night tonight." She explained. "By the way, I have good news and bad news."

"And what's that?" asked Donatello,

"Well, I'm able to go to Sam's Hen party because I found someone to apartment sit for me – seriously, the crime level here is insane – and I don't have to worry about getting back early."

"And the bad news?" Raphael asked suspiciously,

"It's you guys." She grinned nervously, then threw a bunch of keys at him. If it weren't for his quick reflexes he would have been hit square in the face. "Lockthedoorbehindmedon'tordertonsofpizzaifanyoneknocksignorethemandmybatsinthekitchenif_youneedit_!"

And she was gone.

There was a full minute of confused and stunned silence, all four of them staring at, first the door, then the bunch of keys in Raphael's hand.

After a moment, Michelangelo spoke. "Do you reckon that trick would work with Splinter?" he asked,

"No." his brothers replied in unison. Michelangelo's voice had stirred them from their reveries, and Raphael, albeit somewhat confused, did as Jessica had hurriedly requested and locked the front door.

* * *

><p>Five minutes later, there was a call from Jessica, and she told them she was in the taxi, and to text her if anything went seriously wrong.<p>

"Why'd you just leave?" asked Leonardo, who had managed to get to the phone first.

"I didn't want to give you guys time to say _no_." she replied, a tad guiltily, "But Sam's my best friend, and I couldn't miss her Hen Night."

"Hey," piped up Donatello's voice, "What's a Hen Night?"

"It's like..." Jessica paused, searching for an explanation, "It's like a party, a big party – a Hen Night for ladies, and a Stag Night for men – and it sort of celebrates and sends off the concept of being single, because a the person who's Hen or Stag Night it is, will soon be getting married." She paused, listening to the 'aaahh'-s of comprehension. "Actually," she continued, more to herself than the others, "Sam asked _me_ to be her Maid of Honour – that's the bride's right hand woman, so to speak – but I'm crap at organising, and I've got my doctor's coursework to do, so she asked Tabitha instead."

"_Anyway_, she concluded, "It's a party, girls only, and you know I hate leaving my apartment empty at night. I figured you could apartment sit for me."

"No problem, s'not like we have anywhere to go." you could almost _hear_ the shrug in Leonardo's voice.

"Assuming the portal doesn't pop up I the next few hours." Jessica pointed out, "But if it does, just leave a note behind, kay?"

Leonardo laughed, "If it does, we'll _call you_ and say goodbye. Master Splinter didn't raise us without manners, you know."

Jessica laughed, "Very true. And thanks guys." she grinned, "I'll buy you some more comics tomorrow if you don't go nuts with the pizza." Then she bid them goodbye and hung up.

Long story short, she didn't have to buy comics.


	6. Chapter 6

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**Huzzah! The Christmas period is over and you get more of the story. I kid, of course, Christmas is awesome, and my story is, well...okay-ish. Nonetheless, I give to you the next chapter, and personally it's a favourite of mine!**

_**-AppleMelody**_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 6 - Playing Host<strong>

Whilst Jessica was off at Tabitha's Hen-Night, the four of them continued their Disney marathon. All of them, even Raphael (though he was loath to admit it) were enjoying themselves.

"Let's watch _The Black Cauldron_ again." Raphael grinned,

"I wanna re-watch _Beauty and the Beast_." Donatello told them,

"_The Little Mermaid. The Little Mermaid. __**The Little Mermaid**_!" Michelangelo squealed. Leo was sat there quite contentedly, with no real preference to the films. Then he spotted a few newer ones – among them, _Tangled_, _Brave_ and _Frozen_.

"Hey," he said, silencing his brothers' arguing, "Let's watch _these_, we haven't see these ones."

Michelangelo was more than up for it, but Donatello and Raphael, seeing that these films were likely to be a little more girly, were sceptical.

"Aw, come on!" Michelangelo pleaded, putting on his best puppy dog eyes for his eldest brothers. It had never failed him before, and tonight was no different. With a little reluctance from the others, Leonardo slipped _Frozen_ into the DVD player, and they watched.

Strangely enough, they all were enjoying it a great deal – Raphael and Donnie...not so much at the beginning, but by the time Kristoff and Sven were in the picture, they found themselves rather attached to the film. After Hans' reveal, even Raphael had to admit it was a pretty cool film.

* * *

><p>At about eight, they were still watching Frozen, and were fully engaged in the film. All of them had to hand it to Disney, for it really did have a talent for good filmmaking.<p>

"You guys getting hungry?" Leonardo asked, not taking his eyes off of the screen,

"Yeah." Came the reply, and Leonardo went over to get the phone.

It was whilst he was dialling that he heard a distinct _click_ in the lock of the front door. _Jessie?_ He wondered, but soon banished that thought, for she had said she wouldn't be home until very late. Was someone picking the lock? Breaking in?

As the door began to open, Leo made out the shape of what was clearly a male human; certainly _not_ Jessica. He ran to the living room and hissed "**_Hide_**!" to his brothers. In the three seconds it took the man to walk in and close the door behind him, the TV was off and the turtles were all hiding.

The man appeared to be about Jessica's age, and, frankly, didn't really look like a criminal. He had longish black hair, warm brown eyes and the pale skin that marked him as a born-and-bred Londoner. He was wearing fairly casual clothes, just a t-shirt, jeans and trainers. He threw a denim jacket onto the sofa, pulled off his trainers, sat himself down on the sofa and pulled a phone out of his pocket.

As he was texting, Donatello (who was now closest to Jessica's room) snuck out from under the small table (upon which sat the phone and the bowl of keys) and eased his way into Jessica's room. Whilst he searched for her baseball bat, his three brothers watched the intruder carefully.

After he finished sending his text – what it said or who it was sent to was a complete mystery, none of the turtles could see the screen – the intruders turned on the TV, found a channel he appeared to like, then stood up and helped himself to a beer from Jessica's fridge.

During his moment of absence, Leonardo managed to scoot under the sofa. He made a few vague hand signals to his other two brothers.

Raphael responded irritably, making wild, meaningless hand gestures of his own, "_I don't know what that means!_" he hissed,

Leonardo glared at him, and hissed back, "_Wait for my signal, then tackle him_!" He looked to Michelangelo, who nodded and flashed him a thumbs up, indicating he understood. Leonardo suppressed a groan, you'd have thought that since the last time they didn't understand his signals (their first trip to the surface) his brothers would have bothered to learn what the signals meant.

A quick glance to the door of Jessica's room revealed the edge of a purple headband, and another thumbs up. The intruder came back from the kitchen and sat down on the sofa. Just like Jessica had done a few nights ago, he twisted the cap of the beer bottle sharply. He raised the bottle to his lips, oblivious to the blue-masked turtle slowly getting to his feet behind the sofa.

When Leonardo reached his full height, he slammed his hands down on the intruder's shoulder and screamed "**_NOW_**!"

The intruder made a noise that no dignified man would make voluntarily, and dropped the beer bottle with a _clash_ onto the floor. Raphael jumped out from his hiding place and grabbed the intruder's legs, and Michelangelo grabbed him around the torso. Donatello came back through from Jessica's room, holding, not only a baseball bat, but a skipping rope and some duct tape Jessie normally used for sealing parcels. Taking a chair from the dining set in the living room, the turtles tied the intruder up, as well as taping his ankles to the chair's legs, and his wrists together behind the chair's back. As an afterthought, Raphael snatched the tape from Donatello, and taped up the man's mouth too.

They stepped back to admire their handiwork as the intruder looked up at them with terrified eyes. He could barely seem to believe the four unearthly creatures standing before him, and was trying his best to scream from behind the tape.

Leonardo, feeling a twinge of pity, stepped up before the man and said kindly, "We're not going to hurt you."

"Oh yes we are." Raphael said bluntly, "He broke into Jessie's place! He would've robbed her blind if we hadn't been here – and who knows what he would have done if _she'd_ been here." His mind briefly flitted back to her story on the roof. This sparked his anger, and he cracked his knuckles menacingly.

The man looked at Raphael, even more terrified than before, and shook his head profusely.

"What do you mean, _no_?" Raphael asked threateningly, the man tried to speak, but found that the tape muffled his replies beyond comprehension. "We're not taking the tape off." He eventually added, causing the man to let out an annoyed huff. He stopped trying to talk, instead watching them warily. So far, no actual harm has come to him, and he was fervently praying that things would stay that way.

"I'm going to call Jessie." Leonardo announced, "Maybe she can tell us about him." He jerked his head towards the man, "At the very least, we should fill her in."

"Here's his wallet." Raphael added, throwing a small, brown wallet at him. The man in the chair looked down at his pocket in disbelief, then to Raphael.

"I'm that good." The turtle replied bluntly.

Whilst his brothers were keeping an eye on their intruder, Leonardo flipped open the man's wallet and took out the ID card, leaving the bank cards, notes and change untouched. The money was meaningless to him; he couldn't understand it and he'd never have cause to use it.

According to the driver's license, his name was Jackson Christopher Bell, he had been born on the 2nd May 1995 (making him only one month older than Jessie) and he was indeed a born-and-bred Londoner.

Leonardo reached for Jessica's phone and dialled the mobile number she had left beside the receiver for them. A few rings, then a short, cheerful, electronic recording of Jessica's voice answered.

"_Heya!_" said the recording, "_It's Jessie here! I can't get to the phone right now, but leave a message and I'll get right back to you!" _then a long, low _beeeeeeeeep_ and Leonardo spoke,

"Jessie," he said, "It's..._Luke_. This guy, er, his ID says Jackson Bell...he came into your apartment. Just a heads up, really. We know what we're doing. If you get this, I'd love some extra information. Not really sure on the protocol here... Er..._bye_!" And he hung up.

* * *

><p>"Here's to Sammy!" called Jessica, raising her champagne glass in a toast. There was a round of cheers which easily drowned out her vibrating phone. The group of girls downed their champagne and let out <em>whoop!<em> sounds.

"Oh, _loo-kie_!" said Tabitha flirtily, pointing to an attractive young man stood at the bar. His hair was dirty blonde and his eyes were a smouldering silvery-grey, obvious even from all the way across the room. They were stood in a sort of nightclub; nothing rave-y, but there was good music as well as good food. Tabitha's cooing had drawn the attentions of all the other girls in the party, except Samantha, who really wasn't interested.

"He's not bad." Jessica shrugged, and went back to her drink. The remainder of the group turned to her incredulously,

"_Not bad_?!" Tabitha squawked, he's _gorgeous_! And _perfect_ for **you**!"

Jessica looked up, alarmed. "What?" She asked flatly.

"How many boys have you had since Tyler?" The Maid of Honour pressed. Jessica shrugged,

"Three." Said Christine, "That Peter guy, Harry, and...what was his name? Oh, yes, _Thomas_." She counted them off on her fingers. Her American accent (she had moved to England with her family when she was seventeen) made her sound all the more gleeful.

Jessica turned red. It was true, she hadn't had many relationships in the past six years, but could you blame her? Peter had lasted a year and a half – in fact, he had been her..._you know_..._first_. The other two had been only a couple months each, and really hadn't been anything particularly serious.

"Exactly." Tabitha chirruped, "What do you say girls? We'll celebrate Sammy's nuptials by setting up Jessie with a _gorgeous _date!"

"Actually," Jessica began, "I was going to go with-"

"Oh, shush." Tabitha waved away the statement, "You were only going to go as friends. And he's **_so_** boring! But _here_ we have a chance to get you a _proper_ date."

Jessica muttered something into her drink about how she _liked_ going with friends, and _didn't_ find him boring, but made no further comments. Now that Tabitha was on a roll, there was no stopping her.

"Follow me, Chrissie," She announced, pulling Christine up, "We're going man-snatching."

Jessica felt mildly better about this. If they weren't dragging _her_ along, maybe they would forget about her and "snatch" him for themselves.

She supposed he _was_ kinda cute. His eyes were certainly striking; they seemed to glow like stars in the dim light. His features were all sharp and pointy, somewhat elfish. His hair wasn't _long_, but it wasn't short. It was, as Tabby would say, _attractively rumpled_. It was, at this point, Jessica noticed how strange her group must sound to other people. It was pure coincidence that all of their names ended with an 'ee' sound, or could be shortened so they did. Sammy, Jessie, Tabby, Rosie, Chrissie and Maddie. Or, Samantha, Jessica, Tabitha, Rosie, Christine and Madeline.

Her thoughts were pulled back to the strange young man when she saw Tabitha and Christine point in her table's direction. Jessica looked away tactfully, pretending not to have noticed, and hoping that would deter him a little. It didn't.

A few minutes later, the two girls returned with the young man in tow. He said hello to the group and asked Jessica to dance, which she agreed to simply to be kind.

Up close, she realised that his hair wasn't dirty blonde at all, but brown and partially dyed blonde. It looked good though, and went well with his silvery grey eyes.

"So," she said, trying to make idle conversation, "What's your name, stranger?"

"Elliot." Was the reply, and he smiled at her in a _come hither _sort of way. Jessica suppressed a grimace. _Not likely_, she thought. But her reply was,

"Jessica." In a crisp voice.

"A _captivating_ name." was Elliot's response to this, and Jessica was very grateful when the song ended. Elliot was nice, but he unnerved her. Jessica didn't like him, at _all_, and she dashed back to her table as soon as she could. Desperate for an excuse to leave the club, she checked her phone, fully intending to pretend to have a family emergency, but she was confused when she received a voicemail from her own apartment. Tapping the button to listen, she heard Leonardo's voice.

"_Jessie,_" he said, "_It's...__**Luke**__. This guy, er, his ID says Jackson Bell...he came into your apartment. Just a heads up, really. We know what we're doing. If you get this, I'd love some extra information. Not really sure on the protocol here... Er...bye!_" And the message ended.

Jessica froze still. _His ID says Jackson Bell_. That was what Leo had said, right? She pounced on her phone to call him in reply, but _Murphy's Law_, it was low on battery, and she had no signal. She excused herself hurriedly to call Leo and the others, wandering up and down the street, cursing the steel towers of buildings for blocking phone service with their very presence. After a few minutes, she got signal; but the instant she got a bar, the screen snapped off – her phone had died.

Jessica threw her phone down in the pavement (luckily, it had a thick rubber case) and swore loudly at it.

"_GODFORSAKEN, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING, ELECTRONIC PIECE OF__** SHITE**__!_" she yelled, and kicked violently at a discarded beer can on the road. Then, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself and picked up the phone.

Though her anger was gone, having been taken out on her phone and the beer can, Jessica's panic remained. She ran back into the club, explained that there was a family emergency at hers to Rosie, and left. Okay, so maybe it wasn't a _family_ emergency, but it was an emergency nonetheless.

On the bright side, she had no need to _pretend _there was a crisis.

* * *

><p>Jessica was back at her apartment in fifteen minutes, paying the cabbie double to make it snappy, and ran up the stairs to her apartment. She thumped her fist on the door, demanding "<em>Lucas, William, Martin and Daniel, you open this door, <em>_**right now**_!" and she was let in by a surprised trio of turtles. They hadn't expected her to come back, nor for her to be so...was angry really the word? Scared, maybe worried, might have been better.

They shut the door to the living room behind them as Jessica shut the front door, and she looked at them with her hands on her hips. Then, without a word, she pushed past them and peered through the door to her living room by opening it a crack.

_...just a heads up, really. We know what we're doing._

Jessica had taken this to mean they were torturing and interrogating this Jackson Bell. She was relieved to see that he hadn't really had anything happen to him beyond his being tied to a chair and gagged, but right now she had other matters. He was in a chair they had dragged from her two-seating dining set in her living room, and was facing away from the front door. He was looking up at Raphael, who was standing before him, arms crossed in a threatening manner, and was visibly terrified. She made tight, cross gesutrss to Raphael. He looked up, and walked over to her, leaving his hostage to attempting to see behind him – with poor results, one should note.

Once Raphael was within reach, she grabbed him and yanked the four turtles into her hallways. She glared at them dangerously, silently demanding an explanation.

"Don't worry." Donatello smiled at her, surpassingly calm under her wrathful gaze, "We haven't hurt him, but he's not going anywhere until we let him." He was genuinely surprised when Jessica didn't calm at this.

"_THAT_," she hissed furiously, "Is my **_neighbour_**." The four of them paled horribly. Her tone went from angry to exasperated, "Jackson is my _friend_!" she could tell they were about to question his presence in her apartment, so then continued, "It's a deal between us that when one of us stays elsewhere for a night, we pop into each other's flats so we don't get robbed! I forgot to cancel because of you guys."

"So this isn't our fault?" Leonardo asked, but he quavered under Jessica's gaze,

"I would have thought you would know the difference between a _robber_ and a **_guest_**!" she replied, her worry coming out as harshness, "He had a **_key_** for crying out loud."

"We thought he picked the lock." Donatello shrugged sheepishly, but he was silenced by a death glare from Jessica.

There was an awkward silence, then Michelangelo asked,

"So what do we do? Do we tell him about us?"

Jessica sighed and bent her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "No." she replied, flatly, "The less people who know, the better, trust me." She thought for a moment, "Okay, okay, okay...uh... You guys, go in there and continue as you were...I'll be back in a minute, and when I am, _pretend I'm not there_."

The four of them wet back into the living room, and continued their yes-or-no interrogation of Jackson. Jessica, meanwhile, edged silently into her bedroom, which, luckily, was also somewhat behind Jackson. He was facing the kitchen and the living room window, and was oblivious to her presence. He was either too terrified to ask, or to register, the fact that the four turtles had left the room for a minute. Either way, his gaze was fixed on the two turtles (Leo and Raph) who stood before him, looking down at him like Mafia boss lackeys.

After a few moments, Jessica emerged from her room. The turtles were confused, to say the least, when she approached Jackson slowly, as if she were not quite there. But, as they promised, they pretended she was not there.

Jessica slowly made her way over to the man in the chair, her eyes focused on him like an enchantress in a story. She was walking up behind him, and Jackson was entirely focused on his interrogators to notice the girl behind him.

Suddenly and from behind, Jessica drove her fist into Jackson's left temple. He groaned, then went limp in his chair. Being a doctor (in training) she knew _exactly_ where and how hard to hit someone in order to knock them unconscious. Judging by his regular breathing, she had hit that very spot. Jessica opened her mouth in a silent exclamation of pain and waved her right hand frantically; she was strong, but not impervious to pain. Bending double and cradling her hand to her chest, she cursed under her breath.

The four turtles were stood stock still, alarmed to say the _absolute_ least. Their eyes flitted from Jessica to Jackson repeatedly, trying to make sense of what they had just seen. Once Jessie had recovered from her sore hand, she turned to them.

"Don't look at me like that." She pouted, resting her hands on her hips, "Untie him!" she then pointed to Leonardo, "Except for you." She added, and he flinched when she pointed at him, "You get your disguise on."

"Er..._why_?" he asked suspiciously,

"Well he's too heavy for me to carry on my _own_. Especially down _stairs_." She pointed out, "And it's Saturday. There are _going_ to be people out and about."

Leonardo made a sort of shrugging gesture to say _fair enough_ and went to get his disguise. Whilst he pulled on his jeans, his brothers were pulling _off_ the tape on Jackson and the chair. Jessica was cleaning the broken glass from the beer bottle Jackson had dropped, mumbling under her breath. She was not overly cross at them, as they had genuinely thought Jackson was an intruder, she was angrier at _herself_ for not cancelling on him. He lived _two floors _below her, **_how_** could she have forgotten?

Nonetheless, she had more important matters to attend to than her forgetfulness. Once Jackson was untied, she and Leonardo propped him up between them, like you would a friend who has had too much to drink, and they carefully carried him down two floors, to the door of his apartment.

"I can take it from here, Leo." She said, and the turtle carefully eased out from under Jackson's arm and gratefully made his way back upstairs. Jessica fumbled around in her pockets for her keys – just as Jackson had a key to _her_ apartment, she had a key to his. These keys were used in case one of the pair got locked out, or were on holiday and needed someone to water the plants or keep an eye on the flat. Jessica located her keys and rifled through them.

"Flat...Car...Hospital...Nathan's..._Jackson_'s!"

The layout of Jackson's flat was identical to Jessica's, only he had done something different with the available space. He was a police officer, and that required a certain level of physical fitness. So, whilst Jessica had a spare room and a computer study, Jackson had a spare room and a miniature gym – that is to say, every flat in the building came with three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living-slash-dining room, a small kitchen, and an equally small utility room.

Dragging Jackson through the doorway, Jessica lay him down on his bed and went about getting an ice pack for the blow on his head. She felt rather guilty about having to knock him out, but honestly, it was for the best. He'd had worse accidents, anyway. They had actually met for the first time when he fell down at least three flights of stairs. He had been making his way to the skate park, and so had been wearing a helmet, but he had been unable to shake Jessica's hand as his wrist had broken. Their first trip together had been in Jessica's Toyota, and it had been to the hospital.

Ah, memories.

Jessica had actually lived in this building a very long time. When her father passed away, her and Nathan's mother had bought a flat and moved them into this very building. Jessica had been ten, and Nathan had been fifteen. When their mother had remarried five years ago, she had moved in with her new husband and given the then-seventeen-year-old Jessica the flat (by this point, Nathan had moved out and was living with a very pregnant Stephanie, his late wife). But, despite being a lovely, large flat, the local areas had somewhat degraded over the past few years, and it was easy to see why Jessica and Jackson had come to their pop-in-when-I-spend-a-night-away deal. It was either that, or bolt their furniture to the floor and glue their doors shut.

Jessica eventually located a bag of frozen peas in Jackson's freezer, and returned to his bedroom to find he was coming to. His hand went to the back of his head and he groaned.

"What...what happened?" he asked no one in particular, having not yet noticed Jessica. His accent, like hers, was standard London, but it held a slight lilt that marked his Irish heritage. When Jessica answered, he gave a small start and turned sharply, however, he relaxed once he saw who it was.

"You fell down the stairs." She lied, "_Again_."

He flashed her an apologetic half grin, "Hey, Jessie." He said, taking the ice pack and putting it under his head. "Again?" he asked, chuckling. Jessica permitted herself a small laugh as well. Then Jackson sobered, "I had a really weird dream..." he said quietly,

"Oh?" she asked mildly,

"Yeah..." he replied, "I...I came into your flat...and...these _aliens_ attacked me." He looked at her, "I must sound crazy, huh?"

"Not as crazy as you think." Jessica answered, "The hospital gave you some pretty powerful painkillers."

"Good to know." He replied, "Sorry about your Hen Night." He added, after a moment. Jessica waved his apology away and smiled,

"Don't be." She said, "You couldn't help it, and I'm not much of a girls'-night-out person anyway."

"I can vouch for that." He said dryly, and after a moment added, "What was his name?"

"Excuse me?" Jessica was confused. Jackson chuckled,

"Whenever some guy hits on you and you don't like him, you get this look on your face. The same look you've got right now." He flashed her a crooked smile, "So, what was his name?"

* * *

><p>After about an hour of talking to Jackson, and his eventual dropping off to sleep (the concussion had made him tired) Jessica returned to her flat, looking exhausted, but relieved.<p>

"Is he gonna be alright?" Donatello asked immediately,

"No thanks to _you_." She replied, harsher than she meant to, "But yes."

"What did you tell him?" Leonardo asked. He mimicked Jessica's British accent, _badly_, and said, "_Sorry, I forgot I asked four mutated turtles to apartment sit for me_?"

Jessica, despite her annoyance, chuckled slightly, "No." she answered, "I told him he slipped on the stairs and knocked himself unconscious when coming up to my apartment. I found him, I took him to the hospital, they gave him painkillers that made him hallucinate, and then I took him home." She smiled at them, "He woke up, lying in bed. I was sat there next to him. He doesn't suspect a thing."

The four of them breathed a huge sigh of relief, and visibly relaxed.

"However," Jessica's voice took on what could only be described as a dangerous-mum-tone, "The next time someone comes into my apartment _without_ physically breaking in, you call me before you ambush them." She now was standing, rather than leaning on the door, and her hands were on her hips. The turtles mumbled an apology, and then the whole thing was forgotten.

"Now," she said, "I see that you were watching Frozen earlier." Her eyes darted to the empty DVD case, "Mind if I join you?"

The turtles grinned, sat themselves down on the sofa, and the five spent a pleasant evening watching Disney flicks. Not that Jessica would have admitted it to her friends, but she would take movie night over clubbing **_any_** day.


	7. Chapter 7

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**Okay, so this is one of my favourite chapters, and ocne again I want to apologise for the slow goings - I have exams coming up so I'm afraid story chapters are gonna be a bit more as-and-when. Depending on how lazy I am with studying that could mean good or bad news on your part.**

**Also, I might have to put in a language warning for this one...? I really have no clue.**

**At any rate, enjoy this one! Reviews are love!**

_**-AppleMelody**_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7 – Samhain<strong>

* * *

><p>The day after what came to be known as the "Jackson Incident" was quiet. As was the day after that. And the day after <em>that<em>. The turtles fell into the routine of doing as they pleased whilst Jessica went to work (she had to work the occasional Sunday) and on one occasion had tried out the local skate park and tested their boards. It wasn't as fun as the sewers and streets of Manhattan, but it was fun nonetheless. Even though it was October, it felt like the summer holidays.

However, when the next day dawned oddly bright and warm, it was not to be a quiet or calm one.

"Hey, guys, you wanna go out tonight?" Jessica asked as the five of them enjoyed a late morning. Though it was a Wednesday (the turtles had now been living with her for a fortnight), Jessica had very little work to do, and had taken a day's training off. Michelangelo had offered to make breakfast, but she had politely declined. She didn't like the idea of him running around her kitchen, free to use things like the oven, a blender, or, dare she think about it, _the coffee machine_.

The four of them hesitated.

Jessica smiled, she had been expecting that, so continued, "You won't have to wear your disguises," in a singsong voice. Their heads perked up, interested.

"How come?" asked Raphael,

"It's Samhain tonight." She said,

"Sa-wain?" asked three of the turtles – Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo. Donatello made no such query, and wasted no time in explaining it to his brothers.

"It's a Wiccan festival that symbolises the changeover of the Faery Courts." He explained, "But most people call it Halloween." At this, the faces of the trio lit up. Jessica was unimpressed; she had always preferred the name _Samhain_ to _Halloween_. Samhain just sounded far more mysterious.

"There's always a party on the roof," Jessica explained, "Almost everyone in the building goes, and a few more. You wanna come?"

"People won't be weirded out?" Leonardo asked, gesturing down at himself. Jessica shook her head,

"No, they'll be complimenting you guys on your amazing costumes." She told them,

"You got us costumes? _Ow_!" Michelangelo exclaimed, upon receiving a slap from Raphael for his idiocy. "Oh, right," he continued, "We'll be going as ourselves..."

"Yup." Jessica replied cheerily, "Jackson's coming over just before we leave-" concerned glances to one another, "-but he hasn't mentioned anything about..._that night_...-" slightly _less_ concerned glances, "-so make sure you pretend you've never seen him before, and _be polite_." She finished, and then headed off to her room.

"Where're you going?" Raphael asked,

"To get dressed." She called back over her shoulder, "I was looking at my costume last night, I'm missing something, I need to go shopping."

Jessica, after getting dressed, headed out and returned two hours later holding a bag. She refused to tell them anything about her costume, or show them what she had bought, so the turtles spent the day watching _Supernatural_ and cleaning up the mess they left from making lunch. Once hearing them _swear_ they wouldn't use them, Jessica had given the four of them their weapons back for the night.

* * *

><p>At seven pm, Jackson arrived at the doorbell. He was only slightly surprised to see four turtles answer it, and merely said, "Nice costumes, guys." He showed no signs whatsoever of recognising them, which was a great weight off of their shoulders. He also seemed to have completely recovered from his concussion.<p>

The four mumbled something similar in reply, but they couldn't really see what Jackson's costume was. He was wearing baggy grey trousers, large black boots (both of which were unbuckled. The left one had two scarves, one red, one blue, tied around it) that the trousers seemed to be inadvertently tucked in to. Along with this was a white, long-sleeved top; a short-sleeved, red-checked, button-down shirt; a denim jacket that was a bit shorter than said shirt; and fingerless gloves – the palms of which were made of leather, and the backs were made of some sort of black netting. His longish, black hair was much the same, and when he turned, they noticed that he was wearing earrings in his left ear. They were clearly fake. One was in the shape of a lightning bolt, the other was a silver ear-cuff. Over one arm he had a grey woollen overcoat and a red scarf, and sunglasses were tucked into the collar of his red-checked shirt.

"Hey Jessie!" he called in the direction of Jessica's room,

"Hi!" she called back, "I'm still getting ready, so I'm gonna have to ignore you for a sec!"

"Sweets," Jackson said, in an American accent that threw the turtles for a minute, "You couldn't ignore me if you tried."

This made no sense whatsoever to the turtles, and they wondered if he was just messing around and trying to imitate their own American accents. Apparently not, though, because as soon as he finished speaking, Jessica's bedroom door popped open very suddenly and her head poked out, "You _didn't_..." she said, her voice disbelieving. Then she caught sight of him, "_Bender_!" she...well, the only word fitting would be _squealed_.

He winked and clicked his tongue, causing Jessica to laugh,

"Awesome!" she said, "You look just like him!" and her head disappeared.

The turtle looked at him in confusion.

"So..._who_ are you supposed to be?" asked Leonardo,

"The criminal." Jackson replied, with a lazy, cocky grin, "John Bender."

"Who?" asked Donatello,

Jackson cocked his head in confusion, "Bender. John Bender." he prompted, "_The Breakfast Club_? The rebel?" he paused,

He received shrugs and confused glances in reply. "How old are you, exactly?" He asked, and when he received no answer, he opened his mouth to launch into a detailed rendition of the film, and, in particular, John Bender. But then Jessica stepped out of her room and stole the attention – quite rightly too, she looked amazing.

"What do you think, guys?" she asked.

She was wearing a tight-fitted, stark black bodysuit (not patent-shiny) that seemed to cover her neck to her ankles. On her wrists were strange bracelets that looked like a ring of tiny missiles, and her hands were covered by fingerless leather gloves. The left shoulder of the jumpsuit had a circular patch on it that vaguely resembled an eagle. Her hair was temporarily dyed and blood-red, and it hung, long, thick and curly, down her back. On her feet were black, flat-heeled, calf boots.

"You look great, Jessie." Grinned Leonardo, and his brothers were nodding approvingly, she looked cool. "But who..._what_ are you supposed to be?"

"I'm Natasha Romanoff." She replied, smiling broadly, "AKA Black Widow."

Jackson nodded, knowing what she meant. But the others looked at her in confusion. They had yet to actually watch any Marvel films. But, since this was Jessica, they assumed it was pretty accurate.

"I'm guessing you went out to buy the hair-dye earlier?" Leonardo asked,

"Actually, no." she replied, "I bought _this_." And she pulled a gun from a holster on her thigh.

Having been under the impression that it was some sort of cardboard replica glued to her leg, not an actual _gun_, the five of them (Jackson included) leapt back with cries of shock as she waved it around experimentally. She saw the looks on their faces and laughed.

"It's not_ real_." She said, like it was obvious (it was not), "It's a lighter." She pointed it at the ceiling and pulled the trigger, and a small flame appeared at the end of the barrel. The rest of the group exhaled in relief, Jessica was dangerous enough as it was with a bat.

It was but a short walk to the roof, what with Jessica living on the seventh floor. However, when they reached it, it really didn't look like the roof any more. It was covered in small tables bearing food and drink, decorated with several plastic Jack-o'-lanterns, fake cobwebs, fuzzy pretend spiders, and a large black banner that read _Happy Hallowe'en_ in red paint that they supposed was meant to look like blood.

A twenty-something man named Timothy Parr owned the building and used top two flats of the apartment building. He lived in the lower one, and used the upper one for parties – you could rent it out for the evening and such. He was a friendly, amiable young man only a couple years older than Jessica. he was also from a fairly well off family (hence his owning the building). He got along well with Jessie; she was one of his oldest neighbours (in terms of living, not age. That honour went to Mrs Ferguson in 2c, 84 and counting), as well as one of the ones he knew well, since she lived only two floors below his lowest apartment.

"Jessie!" he cried happily, making his way over to the party of six. He studied their costumes momentarily, "You look lovely." He told her, then thought very hard. He looked her up and down, then eventually asked, in a somewhat confident voice, "Widow from _Iron Man 2_, right?"

"Right." Jessica grinned back, "Guys," she turned to the turtles, "This is Timothy."

They murmured greetings in reply, and Leonardo stepped forward to take his hand.

"I'm Luke." He said, "And this is Daniel, Martin and William." He pointed to his brothers in turn. Raphael scowled at the repeated use of the hated name.

"Great to meet you!" Timothy grinned, "Love your costumes by the way, _very_ detailed." Timothy himself was dressed as a vampire. The turtles weren't sure whether they heard Jessica correctly or not when she asked him "I'm so glad you're not sparkling", and decided not to ask. Their attention, however, turned to Jackson when Timothy did. Timothy looked the dark-haired boy up and down. Jackson looked at Timothy politely, as did Jessica, but the turtles started to get a little apprehensive when his face twisted into a sneer. There was five seconds of silence, then;

"Stupid, worthless. no-good, God-damned, freeloading, son of a bitch,..." he said, pointing to Jackson and staggering slightly as if he were drunk. His voice was now low and heavily accented in what sounded like a Brooklyn accent. The turtles turned to him, incredulous at how offensive he was suddenly being. Jessica, however, merely grinned and laughed. Jackson did too, but soon twisted his face into a glaring scowl.

"...retarded, bigmouth, know-it-all, asshole, jerk!" Timothy finished, still pointing and staggering. The turtles, upon seeing Jessica and Jackson's reactions, were now more confused than anything, but were also a little scared at what _the hell_ was going on.

By this point, Jessica was grinning, and she moved to stand beside Timothy. She crossed her arms and cocked her head, twisting her own features into a disgusted scowl. "You forgot ugly, lazy, and disrespectful." She said in a disapproving American accent. No sooner had she finished than Timothy lashed out behind him, catching Jessica in the face. She mock cried out and moved her head back, pretending to have been hit.

"_Shut up bitch!_" Timothy yelled, still in that heavily accented voice, "Go fix me a turkey pot pie!" The turtles jaws dropped, and if it weren't for the smile on Jessica's face, Timothy would have been pinned to the floor with two katana, a naginata, a pair of kusarigama and two sai pointed at his head.

"What about you, dad?" Jackson asked him, putting on an American accent, not unlike the one he had used in Jessica's flat. He jerked his head and held his jaw slack in a very challenging-adolescent manner.

"Fuck you." Timothy replied bluntly, still speaking with the accent. The turtles flinched a little, still unused to cursing, having been raised in a world that had so much so in its mouth it could be a bubble bath.

"No. _Dad_," Jackson's voice was more serious now, more threatening. "What about _you_?"

"Fuck you!" Timothy said, louder, raising a fist.

"NO, DAD!_ WHAT! ABOUT! YOU!_" Jackson yelled, pointing at Timothy accusingly,

"**_FUCK YOU!_**" Timothy screamed back, throwing a punch at Jackson. His head snapped back and he swore loudly as though in pain; like Timothy's blow to Jessica, it had been fake.

It was then that the seven of them realised they were being watched. By pretty much everyone else on the roof. Some, like the turtles, were looking on in confusion. Others were grinning, because they knew what was going on.

Then, a boy whom none of them had ever seen before stepped over.

"Is that for real?" he asked, eyes wide with pretend awe.

Jackson looked at him, jaw slack in that '_I couldn't care less_' way, "You wanna come over some time?" he asked. Then he stood up straight, faced the crowd, and bowed. Jessica and Timothy, after a minute's hesitation, followed suit. The crowd laughed and applauded a little.

"This universe is crazier than I thought." Raphael whispered to Donatello, faintly fearful, however very excited by the short display that had just been put on.

The crowd then returned to their party antics and Timothy turned back to Jackson, "Seriously though," he said, now talking normally, "_Excellent_ costume."

"Y'ain't seen nothing yet." Jackson grinned, also taking normally once more. He rolled up the right sleeve of first his denim jacket, and then his white long-sleeved top. On the inside of his forearm, clearly done with makeup, was a circular burn about the size of a ten pence coin.

"Nice." Timothy grinned,

"_Very_ nice." Jessica smiled. Then she turned to the guys, "What did you think?" she asked them, referring to their short skit, "Not bad for on-the-spot, huh?"

"I think you've lost your mind." Raphael said bluntly,

Jessica laughed, "You haven't seen the film, have you?" she asked, and they shook their heads, almost tiredly, "We'll watch it tomorrow, don't worry. But it's a real classic and it's _amazing_."

"As amazing as _Sherlock_?" asked Donatello,

"Even better." Jessica replied solemnly. Then her face broke into a grin and she pulled the four of them into a hug. "Now, _I'm_ gonna go check out what booze's on offer, _you_ guys just do what you like – but **_no_** fighting. If you need me, you'll know where to find me." It was true, her bright yellow suit, among other things, made her very easy to spot.

The four of them laughed, hugged her back briefly, and then ventured into the party. Jackson fell into step with Jessica.

"So they're friends of yours, huh?" He asked, smiling wryly.

"Well, yeah." She replied, "I guess you could say they're like little brothers though; they were a huge part of my childhood." And that, of course, was true. She smiled nostalgically, and then refocused.

"Hey," she said, "I bet I can drink more beer than you in ten minutes!" she grinned, and the two of them raced to a table dotted with paper cups and permanent markers (for writing your name on said cups).

* * *

><p><strong><em>Two hours later<em>**

He didn't really know what happened.

One minute, he was in Timothy's upper apartment, talking to a guy called Ben, who was dressed as some person from a British show, but he didn't really know who. Someone called "Ten" several others called him "Doctor" and he was wearing what appeared to be 3D glasses and a long brown coat. But he was a pleasant conversationalist. The next moment, however, he felt a tugging sensation on his left arm and found himself dragged into a small cupboard whose door he had been unknowingly leaning against. He found himself in a very small, very dark, very _cramped_ space. What's more, he wasn't alone.

He heard a _click_, and next thing, the cupboard was lit by a small, yellowy bulb, and he could see that his captor and cupboard-mate was, unfortunately, Emily. He tried not to yell in fear; half from surprise, and half from a strong desire to avoid her. She was dressed as Sailor Moon, and, whilst she looked good, it was clearly a version of the costume meant for older people, _if_ you get what I mean.

"Oh..." he said nervously, "Hi, Emily. Didn't see you there..." he gulped, "It's kinda small in here," he began, and it was not just a nervous lie. There _was_ very little space in the cupboard, and his shell took up a great deal. And as much as he wanted to hide inside said shell, there was no way of doing that without blowing his cover.

"Maybe I should go-" he reached for the doorknob, but Emily caught his hand. The glove felt strange against his skin, but it probably would have felt less strange if someone like, say, _Jessica_ had been wearing it, and not Emily.

"Don't worry." She smiled lazily, "I don't mind small spaces. We just have to _stay close_." She winked and pushed herself forward slightly. Raphael felt her torso pressing against his plastron. He pushed back against the wall, but found that it was solid and rigid.

_Great._ He thought, _**juuuust**_ _great_. He cursed the buildings sturdy infrastructure.

"You know, as much as I _love_ Raphael, I like _you_ more." Emily said huskily.

"Y-y-you do?" he asked nervously, _you don't even know me_, he tried to add, but his mouth seemed to be failing.

"Yeah." She smiled, "So do you wanna make a deal?"

"What sort of deal...?" Raphael inquired, now very out of his comfort zone. He would take on the Shredder, alone, _right now_, if it meant he could get out of the cupboard.

"I take off your mask," she began slowly, and she traced the chip I his plastron, just like she had done a few days ago on the roof. Raphael bit down, _hard_, on a ticklish laugh. "And maybe..._I_ take off something too?" she winked, using her free hand to tug at the bow on her costume. Raphael blanched.

_Oh no, oh no, oh no...think, get yourself out of here, just __**think**__! _He screamed internally.

"I...er..." he gulped own a breath, "Look, Emily..." he said, "You're really nice and all, but...I'm kinda taken." Surely Jessica would be willing to feign being in a relationship with him until he returned home? He'd rather go a round with Karai, Shredder _and_ the Kraang than stay in the cuboard for one _second_ longer. But Emily merely shrugged,

"What she doesn't know, won't hurt her." Raphael's face lost what little colour it had retained the first time around as she twined her arms around his neck.

_Oh shell...only one thing for it..._ he thought, he didn't _really_ know what the term meant, he had just heard Jessica use it when describing one of her friends (_Rosie, I __**think**__..._). But from what he gathered it was somewhat a social taboo (to other humans at least. It didn't seem to bother Jessie at all, and her exact words had been "..._and now the mall refused her a job because of it! The __**bastards**__! I'm pretty sure that's illegal, too_")

"Actually..." he said, fumbling over his words in panic, but her smile only grew. She clearly thought he was stumbling because he like her too. Shr really couldn;t have been more wrong. Eventually, however, he managed to stammer out, "I-I can't, because...I...I'm gay."

Well that did it.

Emily lept back from him like he had burnt her. "Oh my **_GOD_**!" she shrieked, and she fled out of the cupboard faster than Raphael could have – which was saying a lot. Whether she was homophobic or not was never really clear. Either way, he didn't see Emily again (much to his immense relief). When his brothers asked what had happened (having only seen Emily drag him in) he would merely growl, "If I told you I'd have to kill you" and raise a fist. That worked splendidly. However, he did notice that several men were giving funny looks, and once or twice, a _particularly_ drunken one approached him and drawled "Ya wanna get outa here, Raph?" then sniggering at their own joke (which Raphael didn't really get; the joke was using his 'name' as his name) and winking suggestively. He merely shrugged them off with a _WTF-are-you-doing-_look. He never understood that they were propositioning him.

That was probably a good thing.

That said, the party, aside from the "Emily incident", was very enjoyable for all four of the turtles. Michelangelo was beating everyone at apple-bobbing, Donatello was talking science with some university students going for their PhD's, Leonardo was just talking and downing glass after glass of the non-alcoholic punch, and Raphael was being tough with the guys and downing glass after glass of the _alcoholic_ punch. However, by eleven 'o'clock, they started to get tired, so went to find Jessica, who was chatting with Jackson (and apparently had no intention of stopping any time soon – both of them were still very awake) asked for a key, and Jackson gave them his. They thanked them, bade the two goodnight, and headed down into her apartment before falling asleep on their respective beds, barely managing to take off their weapons first. Michelangelo, however, still retaining _some_ energy, picked up these weapons and placed them back in the coat-cupboard, before collapsing on the sofa, asleep.

And that was how Jackson and Jessica found them a few hours later. Asleep like little green angels. Of course, they didn't really notice the four of them much, having more interesting distractions than animated mutant turtles.


End file.
